


Hux's Mistake

by TehanuFromEarthsea



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Comedy, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-27
Updated: 2016-11-18
Packaged: 2018-06-04 18:52:32
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 32,124
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6670738
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TehanuFromEarthsea/pseuds/TehanuFromEarthsea
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>General Hux has neither the time nor the inclination to raise a child he was unaware of fathering. Snoke has other ideas, however.</p>
<p>*   *   *</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> The last stories were a bit serious so I needed some light relief. Then this happened. Welcome to my world.
> 
> * * *

The DNA test was positive.

“But why should that concern me?” asked General Hux. His words fell on the darkness of Snoke’s throne room with the ring of doom.

Snoke fixed him with a look that warned him he wasn’t going to like the answer.

“It is time to look beyond your military successes and plan for …Empire,” said Snoke in a silky voice. “And with Empire comes the question of lineage. Of _succession.”_

Hux shifted uncomfortably — a minuscule movement from heel to toe — without losing the rigid posture he always adopted in Snoke’s throneroom.

“There is plenty of time for that…” he began. His voice sounded weak in his ears.

“Indeed no!” Snoke interrupted. “Scientific research and my own long observation of human affairs suggest that now is the _optimal_ time for you to father children. And since you have clearly already done so, then it is obviously necessary that this child should be under your control. The last thing you want is to have it reappear in twenty years’ time as a pretender to the throne, supported by factions hostile to us.”

“I don’t believe people place much reliance on genealogy in politics these days,” began Hux, but Snoke waved him aside.

“My experience of human history suggests otherwise,” he said, in his most patient “you idiot” voice.

“Very well. I will take the child and have it sent to the Military Academy, as I was.”

“You have never _met_ this child!” said Snoke, rousing into one of his unpredictable rages. “NOW is the time when you must establish your authority, to create an heir that will be loyal to our aims and our principles! Loyal to YOU!”

“There’s nowhere suitable for a child on the Finalizer! It’s not a nursery!” said Hux desperately.

Snoke returned quickly to his normal chilly calm. “As far as I’m aware, human children require no special provisions beyond food and clothing, which are provided for all of the Finalizer’s inhabitants. Education is available to everyone who has access to a console or datapad. Your child does not need to be raised in a brood-pouch or egg-sac or special atmosphere. I’m sure it will do very well on the Finalizer.”

Seeing Hux hesitate, Snoke added even more quietly, “Unless you would like _me_ to raise the child?”

Hux thought of Kylo Ren, or whatever he was calling himself these days, and suppressed a shudder. “No, my lord. I will take charge of the child.”

He snapped a salute and left the throne room with the conviction that he was making a terrible mistake.

If only the mother had been anyone else…As he walked back to his quarters, his mind wandered back to a time eight years ago.

If the mother _had_ been anyone else, Hux could have refused to acknowledge the child. But Julilla Do sen-Hutt was a daughter of one of the most powerful families in the First Order. Their influence spread everywhere. Not only were the Do sen-Hutts wealthy in their own right, not only were they descended from generations of nobility, but their adoption of the Hutt name was an honorific title hinting at how securely their fortunes were supported by the fabulously rich Hutt criminal empire.

Such a family had no trouble in dropping a word in the right ears so the story would reach all the way to Snoke. Their beloved runaway daughter had had a child with the First Order’s General Hux, and she was regrettably no longer able to embrace the demands of motherhood, and so General Hux would have to step into the parental role. Or else.

Hux had not known what toils he was getting into when he met Julilla Do sen-Hutt, because she was possibly the greatest con-artist he’d ever known. When he met her, she represented herself as an independent galactic freebooter, surviving by her wits and skill. Making her lonely way against a hostile world through sheer pluck and charm. She neglected to mention that she was on the run from her family.

It had happened at an aerospace trade show, of all places. The First Order was considering replacements for its ageing TIE fighter fleet, and Hux was part of the task-force assessing the various possibilities. After a pleasant day spent watching the competing starfighter models being put through their paces, the First Order threw a little party for the aerospace executives and designers pitching their wares. The fighter pilots were invited too, as a reward for their aerobatic entertainment.

Julilla was the pilot for the Huppla Pasa Tisc Shipwrights Collective, who were offering a reworked Ginivex-class starfighter. She was easily the most beautiful woman there. She had midnight-black hair and a huge white smile that flashed out like a beacon. Her flight-suit hugged her tall, statuesque figure in a most distracting way. The result of _very_ expensive tailoring, as Phasma hissed to Hux over a glass of pale Lothian iced wine. But too late, Hux was lost. He went to introduce himself and spent the rest of the night with her.

The Ginivex starfighters were rejected by the First Order, but Julilla became, briefly, a fixture on the Finalizer.

To call it a whirlwind romance would be missing the point. Julilla nearly put an end to his military career. At first she loved the pomp and posturing of military life as much as she loved mocking it. At the social functions where First Order dignitaries gathered, Julilla’s tinkling laugh would cut through the hum of powerbrokering conversation like a diamond saw, and Hux would see a moment of frozen shock on the faces around her before everyone burst into roars of laughter. She would tease and she would amuse. Her slinky, figure-hugging dresses drew every eye in the room — and what a figure she had to hug! Hux revelled in the knowledge everyone in the room knew he was the only person getting closer to her than that millimetre-thin layer of gnazian silk she wore.

In the light of subsequent events, possibly his happiest memory of his time with Julilla was the night they threw a party aboard the Finalizer to celebrate the return of Kylo’s newly-formed Knights of Ren from their first successful mission. Force-powers or no, the Knights at that time were a gaggle of teenage boys reeking of hormones ill-masked by the terrible deoderant bodyspray they all wore. An adolescent boy smell Hux remembered well from his days at the Academy. Their try-hard scary masks only reinforced the impression that they were, underneath it all, nothing more than a mass of acne and angst. As Julilla threw back her magnificent head and laughed, exposing the single Mon Calamari pearl resting on her throat, and wearing her favourite scarlet sheath, Hux didn’t need to see under their masks to know that they were drooling helplessly. It gave him great joy.

Their liaison came to an end the night Julilla turned off the artificial gravity in order to show Hux the delights of sex in freefall. The unscheduled loss of gravity caused incalculable damage within the Acclamator-class assault transport they were travelling in, as unsecured equipment and effects suddenly came loose from their moorings. Not to mention the injuries to people.

Julilla made a hasty exit when she saw that Hux was not, and would never be, amused by this escapade, the last of several that had not tickled his funny bone in any way. It was lucky for her that she had her own personal ship, a Hoersch-Kessel fast courier, stored onboard. She was gone before the First Order could pile its wrath on her. She may have learned her piloting skills from the premium instructors her parents could afford rather than picking them up at the School of Hard Knocks as she’d claimed, but there was no denying her native talent for fast getaways.

* * *

And now, eight years later, he was presented with the news of a child. Incontestably _his_ child. A boy, apparently. Chaali Do sen-Hutt ni Hux would be waiting for him on a transfer station orbiting above Bastion, dropped off there by Julilla, who was off to pilot an experimental farjumper ship to a neighbouring galaxy. So, a few days after his meeting with Snoke, Hux was off to collect him.

There was only one boy on the sleepy transfer station when Hux got there, and he stood out among the harried-looking middle management types working there. Hux’s first impression was of a mop of ash-blonde hair so unruly that it formed long tentacles like young togruta. His skin was tanned. No hint of ginger genes there, and no relation to any raven-haired parent either, given the dicates of genetics. So Julilla’s natural hair colour was another thing she’d lied about. Somehow Hux wasn’t surprised.

There was a bank of vidsceen communicators in the grimy, mostly deserted lounge where Chaali was waiting, and as Hux entered, the child was talking to somebody on one of them. Hux walked over. It was Julilla on the screen, hair shaved off but otherwise untouched by the passage of eight years. She looked up from her conversation with Chaali and saw Hux. Her gambler’s face betrayed no surprise, simply saying to the child “He’s here now Chaali. Be brave, it’s only for two years. Hello Hux. Lovely to see you, but I have to go now. Take good care of Chaali for me now, won’t you?”

She flickered her fingers in an affected gesture of farewell to both of them. “Toodle-pip. See you when I get back.”

* *

Chaali seemed unmoved by his mother’s departure. He simply looked up at Hux with the same cool blue gaze Hux recognised from any mirror.

“Is it true you’re a General?” said Chaali, while Hux was still thinking what to say.

“Yes.”

“And I’m really going to live on board the largest starship in the First Order?”

“Yes.”

“It’s the Finalizer, isn’t it? A Resurgent-class Star Destroyer?

“Yes,” said Hux, who still hadn’t come up with anything better to say.

“I’m glad my mother was telling the truth about that!” said Chaali, and suddenly skipped up and down in place. “Let’s go then.”

* *  
Chaali liked starships. He liked them a bit too much. He talked of nothing else all during the long, long trip back to the Finalizer. He asked not one question about Hux, Hux’s family, or anything that was not starship-related. Hux buried his head in briefing papers and answered in monosyllables, but Chaali seemed impervious to hints.

He had tried asking Chaali about his life so far, but Chaali’s answers rambled across such a bewildering variety of topics that it was well-nigh impossible to get any clear impression. He and Julilla had travelled a lot. He knew how to make a fire using two sticks. His best friend last year was some species he couldn’t describe and Hux had never heard of. Julilla had promised him a riding-toyth, but then they moved to the beach and joined a fleet that fished for valuable borials instead. Chaali showed him a borial-tooth he’d hung from a piece of string around his neck. Hux had never heard of any of those creatures. “How many ventral cannons does the Finalizer have?” Chaali resumed, unwilling to deviate from his main interest.

Eventually Hux was forced to raise his voice, and then to physically restrain Chaali, when he launched himself out of the passenger seats on their shuttle and stood between the pilot and co-pilot, firing out questions and reaching greedily past them for the controls.

“Are we on the B model or the 41AC? This primes the laser cannon doesn’t it? This is armed with two? And then you can adjust the concussion frequency on the blaster cannons with this one? Or is it this one?”

Chaali seemed deaf to Hux’s demands that he sit down. The co-pilot batted desperately at Chaali’s hands, which were grabbing all over the console. When Hux went to snatch him away, Chaali yelled “NOOOOOO!” at such a shattering pitch and volume that the pilot let go of the controls to protect his hearing. Chaali’s arms and legs flailed everywhere with surprising strength and Hux was forced to use a martial-arts hold to contain him. They were still sitting like that as the shuttle docked on the Finalizer, both of them liberally covered in snot and tears.

“Take this boy and give him a tour of the ship, then escort him to my quarters and let me know when you have done so,” said Hux, handing Chaali to the nearest stormtrooper in the troop assembled in the docking bay.  
  
He left them to it and escaped to the sanity of the Finalizer’s bridge.

“You’ve got something on your collar,” said Phasma, by way of greeting. “It looks sticky.”

 


	2. Hux's Mistake 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Adapting to life on the Finalizer
> 
> * * *

The Do sen-Hutt clan were pleased to have discovered a grandson, even if they had no desire to raise him themselves. Chaali was allowed to contact them once a week on the holonet. The novelty of having grandparents quickly wore off for Chaali.

“I’m bored now. I’m going to do something else,” was Chaali’s usual sign-off. So Hux was left to talk to Julilla’s mother, Messalina Do-sen Hutt, on his own.

“He seems like a well built boy. Very athletic looking. He will make a fine warrior one day, I’m sure,” said Messalina, twirling a lock of wispy blonde hair around one finger. Her wide blue eyes were a faded version of Chaali’s, but they looked very different in her face, with the air of innocent femininity she practiced even at her age.

“Why don’t you raise him yourselves?” asked Hux, not for the first time.

“Oh, I don’t know….I don’t think we did such a good job of it with Julilla, do you?” said Messalina, without a trace of shame. The very wealthy don’t need to care what anyone thinks of them, Hux thought. They don’t even need to succeed at things. “I’m sure a bit of military discipline will be just what he needs,” Messalina continued, and that was the end of the topic.

“Speaking of discipline, he refuses to let us cut his hair. Says you will not allow it.” The day of the proposed haircut had been a spectacular one. Chaali had found the weak point in stormtrooper armour — the knees, which he was peculiarly well-placed to attack, with his diminutive height. While resisting he’d also grabbed the leg of Hux’s desk in a vice-like grip and in the melee that followed, the whole thing tipped over, crushing Hux’s personal holopad. Then he’d howled about how his family would never forgive anyone who cut his hair. He’d been growing it for years. There was enough weight in Chaali’s threat to stay Hux’s hand, or rather, the hand of the Twi’lek barber he’d engaged.

“Oh, no of course not!” said Messalina, eyes widening in horror at the mention of a haircut. “Didn’t Julilla tell you? That girl is such a scatterbrain. It’s against our religion! Chaali must not have his hair cut until he attains his majority.”

Hux agreed, though he’d seen no sign that the Do sen-Hutts had any religion besides money, and Chaali was the most determined atheist he’d ever met. He had no idea at what age Chaali would “attain his majority” but at this rate, there’d be hair all over the ship.

“Well, tell him he needs to keep it tidy.”

“You tell him. He’s your boy.”

Hux cut the connection and called Phasma.

“Phasma, I have a new task for whoever happens to be on your shitlist every day. Assign them to my quarters in the morning. They have to wash and brush Chaali’s hair and tie it back. I am sick of seeing him looking like a togruta.”

* * *

 

  
It was the naive assumption of people who designed star destroyers that the upper ranks would like to live near each other. Hux sourly imagined them pitching that idea with buzzword phrases like “creating a command synergy in the upper echelons as they live, work and play together”. Three kilometres of ship, and he was forced have quarters near Phasma and Kylo.

Sound did travel along the ventilation ducts so it was not a complete surprise to have Phasma knock on the door one morning while Chaali was responding to his breakfast. (Apparently separate food items were not to touch, and blue foods were completely untenable, as were foods containing lumps or any surprising textures).

“Time for the morning scream already, is it?” said Phasma, when Hux opened the door. “I’m getting a little sick of it. Do you realise I can hear this every morning through my air ducts?”

Hux shrugged and pointed over his shoulder to Chaali, who was at a table, locked in a battle of wills with a servitor droid. Or he had been until a second ago. While Hux’s back was turned, Chaali had disabled it with a lightning-quick jab of some tool he had, and the “ting” of small parts hitting the floor broke the sudden silence.

Phasma pushed past him, strode over to Chaali, bent down to his height and hissed, “This must STOP!” Chaali jerked back and his jaw dropped. He hadn’t registered Phasma’s arrival at all, so the sudden (to him) apparition of a very tall shining woman in his field of view gave him pause.   
Phasma pushed her face closer and shook a finger right in his face. “Enough!”

Chaali launched a flailing punch and found himself folded into a pretzel, frog-marched across the room by his wrist twisted into an aikido grip, and then hurled some distance through a doorway onto his bed.

“How did you do that?” he asked Phasma, a bit whinily, but far from screaming blue murder the way Hux expected.

“If you finish your breakfast, I’ll show you,” Phasma said. “Meet me in the training room in ten minutes, and if I hear a satisfactory report about your eating breakfast, I will show you four ways to disable an attacker.”

“Truly?” asked Chaali. He asked that a lot, which was natural, Hux supposed, for anyone who’d spent a lot of time around Julilla.

“Absolutely. Ten minutes. You’ll need to tie your hair back or it’ll get yanked out.”

“Breakfast makes me vomit,” he said sadly.

“Follow me then. I have field rations in my cupboards. They have no colour, flavour or texture whatsoever.”

Chaali was out the door after Phasma so fast he was practically a blur. Hux was left to ponder whether the risk of Chaali learning some fighting techniques outweighed the boon of having some peace and quiet. Either way he suspected he was going to be in Phasma’s debt over this.

* * *

 

In Phasma’s rooms, Chaali licked a biege-coloured cube cautiously. It was exactly as a field ration cube should be. He wolfed down two of them. Meanwhile Phasma sat next to him at the table fiddling about with some schematics on her datapad. Chaali could make out a diagram of a ship.

“What are you doing?” he asked.

“Designing a ship.”

“Truly?”

“Well, I like to design ships and I have a programme on my pad to do it. I don’t suppose anyone will ever make one of my designs. It’s a hobby.”

“What are you working on?”

“A light armed courier. But I’m stuck here… the oscillators need to be here, but I haven’t figured out how to feed through to the hyperdrive units without compromising the midsection shield strength. I don’t want to punch a big hole through it.”

“You could run conduits up over the top?”

“Yes, and that’s what people usually do. But that looks ugly, and I want it to be a beautiful ship.”

Chaali nodded. “Too easy to attack, too…but then if you run them through the middle, they’re too close to crew quarters.”

Their heads bent together over the pad for another ten minutes, shoving components around on the design, before Phasma broke off, saying, “But we have work to do! In the training room! Tie back your hair.”  
“I haven’t got a hairtie,” said Chaali.

“Oh, look in here. I might have a bit of fabric that will do.” Phasma opened a door, revealing a room that was as colourful and untidy as the rest of her quarters were subdued and orderly. Chaali went to look, and his eyes went very round. Bolts and swatches of cloth were stacked everywhere in every colour imaginable, and boxes of buttons, sequins and semi-precious stones spilled out of a set of high shelves. There was a big worktable with machines Chaali didn’t recognise, and sketches of dress designs were tacked up on the walls.

Phasma waved a dismissive hand in response to Chaali’s silent question.

“My sister’s an actress for holovids. I like to design things for her and her friends to wear, and they model my dresses for me.”

Chaali rolled himself into a bolt of gnavian silk and further wrapped himself in a length of golden pellure fur. “My mother wears things like this,” he said.

“I noticed,” Phasma said.

“You met her?”

“Yes. She lived on the Finalizer for a short time, before you were born. She certainly kept things lively around here. Rather like you.”

“Oh.” Chaali thought about that for a while, and then said, “Can I build a nest here?”

“Only if you’re clean, and if you use offcuts I’ve finished with. Now, choose a colour for a hairtie.”

He picked out some midnight-blue silk, and Phasma snipped off a length for hm. They went back to her lounge and she handed him a brush. “Brush it and tie it back. It means your sparring partner won’t tangle their hands in it and hurt you by accident.”

Chaali complied without comment and without any yelling. He looked very fine, blonde hair sleeked back and tied up with the deep blue silk.

“Now, empty your pockets,” said Phasma.

Chaali started to make excuses immediately, but made no move to comply. “I was just going to make a governor for my invention. It needs one for the driving rod. And I haven’t got any good scissors…I can’t cut the cables I need…I didn’t think you were using these. You have lots…”

Phasma kept holding her hand out, palm up. “Give me whatever you’ve nicked, now. Or else you don’t get invited back, and no more field rations for you.”

Chaali dug in his pockets and pulled out a small pair of scissors and a number of reels and cogs from her sewing machinery.

“I wasn’t born yesterday,” said Phasma. “Now, let’s go and learn some throws.”

Unabashed, Chaali skipped after her to the training room.

* * *

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Because there must be ASD kids in the Star Wars universe, obviously.....


	3. Hux's Mistake 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kids just love baddies...
> 
> * * *

“There’s no denying the power of genetics,” said Kylo Ren, waving his glass at the half-melted helmet of his grandfather.

Oh, the irony.

“I take it you haven’t met my son then,” said Hux darkly.

Kylo shook himself out of his Vader reverie. “Uh. Somebody’s been following me around. Blonde boy, about this high?” He held his hand a metre and a half off the ground. “That your boy? I thought he’d be more ginger.”

“I’d be happy if he were more like me in any way whatsoever.”

“That’s a minority opinion, I’m sure,” said Kylo cattily. Evidently not feeling that the Finalizer would be improved by having more Huxness around. He caught Hux’s gathering frown and said, “Oh well, sometimes these things, family traits, skip a generation. Certainly happened in my case.” He resumed his fond regard of Vader’s helmet.

Not five minutes later, Hux’s commlink beeped, releasing him from an embarrassingly maudlin scene. He leapt out of his chair to take the call in his own room. Drinks with Kylo were always a bad idea.

Not as bad as the call that awaited him. Hux knew what the call would be about as soon as he got to his room and saw the locking mechanism hanging off his door by its wiring. Better than the time when he’d tried to open the door only to have it fall on him because Chaali had removed the hinges. But still, the obvious point: Chaali was not obediently asleep in his room.

Instead he’d had been found down in the engine room, dogging the footsteps of a crew on the red-eye shift that was fixing the forward shield generators. Hux hadn’t known Chaali was missing, but that was typical. One minute Chaali would be quietly fiddling with something in his room, the next, gone. To be found hours later, testing the aerodynamic properties of dinner trays in the commissary, jamming airlocks or taking the batteries out of stormtrooper armour.

He was constantly amassing batteries and as fast as Hux could discover one stash, Chaali would start hiding them somewhere else. If you shook him — and Hux did, frequently — a collection of screwdrivers and vibrospanners and was sure to drop out of his pockets. This particular day the repair crew had caught Chaali making off with a cable as thick as his arm. Building a rathtar trap, he said. Hux had tripped over more than one of Chaali’s vast and utterly useless fantasy inventions. A rathtar trap would be par for the course, for Chaali.

If it was’t for the positive DNA identification, Hux would have begged to differ with Ren about genetics. He certainly didn’t see anything of himself in Chaali, who had no concept of order and discipline, and spent every moment either building or talking about his fantastical, non-functional constructions.

Chaali _had_ inherited Hux’s disinterest in public opinion. Though the troops liked him well enough, to a point. Hux had overheard them swapping stories of Chaali’s latest doings and sayings. He couldn’t be spending much time in the educational suite where Phasma had sent him, because it seemed people all over the ship had a Chaali story. Stories that made them laugh, up until Chaali carried out his latest heist. Then the ship was in an uproar while everyone searched for the last two missing plasmium filters or whatever, and fingers would be pointed and blame assigned. Who had let Chaali out of their sight this time?

Demotions were frequent, but conversely, morale was high.

* * *

Genetics, huh? Let me tell you a thing or two about genetics, Kylo, he thought to himself a week later as he strode towards Kylo’s rooms. He could hear a little piping voice somewhere ahead of him.

“Let me tell you something,” said that voice. Two stormtroopers stood to attention as Hux marched past, but he could see their shoulders quivering with laughter inside their armour. He shuddered to think what Chaali monologues they’d been privy to.

“If you had two lightsabers, that would be twice as good,” lectured Chaali. Hux could hear a grating rumble from Kylo’s room. Hopefully he was pointing out how he could slice Chaali into _four_ pieces at once if he had two lightsabers. Not that it would stop the boy from talking.

“Look, I made you a belt. It’s got extra loops on it. It can take up to six lightsabers. If you had two on your back, that would make….”

_“Chaali!”_ yelled Hux, lunging into Ren’s room and grabbing the boy’s arm. “Leave the nice man alone.” Chaali dropped an extravagantly looped belt he was holding and hugged pieces of a partially-disassembled mouse droid to his chest. He had a mutlitool in the other hand.

Ren put his hands up in an “I am defeated” gesture. Hux rolled his eyes. “Snoke _said_ I had to raise him here on the Finalizer. Is there a datapad on lightsabers he can look at to keep him busy?”

“Oh, Snoke!” chirped Chaali. “I talked to him today too.”

Both men’s heads snapped around as one, and two sets of laser stares aimed their crosshairs at Chaali, who was too busy dismantling the mouse droid to notice.

“WHAT?” they chorused. Chaali looked up.

“What? He called on the holoprojector while you were out. I asked him if he got hit by a lightsaber.”

“What?” said Hux. Ren just put a hand over his face, rounding his already round shoulders even more.

“Well he has these cuts on his face. I asked if they didn’t have a medical bay with bacta tanks when he got cut. He should have healed up better than that.”

“Some people like to wear their scars as a sign of their fighting prowess,” said Kylo pompously from behind his hand.

“Eww,” said Chaali. “It looks hideous.”

Hux found himself unexpectedly siding with his son.

“You didn’t tell him that, did you?”

“No, I didn’t want to hurt his feelings. He probably doesn’t want to be old and ugly, so I won’t remind him,” said Chaali kindly. Hux could see Kylo’s other hand convulsing with the desire to strangle.

“Can you not control this child?” he snarled over Chaali’s head. “If it was me, I’d give him to Phasma to look after!”

“She’d just call you a sexist bastard,” said Hux.

“You said a bad word!” said Chaali.

“I don’t care if I am a sexist bastard, so long as I don’t have to listen to this. This is my room. Out, the both of you!”

Hux pulled Chaali out, and Ren kicked the disassembled mouse droid savagely out the door after them.

* * *

“Why is this corridor dark again?” rumbled Kylo Ren through his helmet. He’d collared Phasma on the way to the bridge. Lights were not working in the corridor that linked the upper rank quarters with the command section of the Finalizer. For the third time since Primeday.

“I believe Hux’s son disconnects them. He says they make a sound he doesn’t like.”

“Well, get a repair crew onto it.”

“Then Chaali will have a meltdown every time he comes through here. I can hear him through my door, and I’d rather not.” Phasma scratched under the collar of her helmet, after first checking that there were no underlings around to see her making such a human gesture. “Nobody’s figured out how to fix the lights so they don’t hum. But I’ll have them try again.”

“Why is that boy so annoying? Can’t Hux control him?”

“Hux thinks hitting him and yelling at him will work. But the boy is a boiling pot.”

“Boiling pot?”

“You know. Anything you do just adds more heat to the fire and he boils over. Even if you can scare him into complying for half an hour, all it’s doing is forcing a lid over the pot and turning it into a pressure cooker. The results when he explodes are even worse.”

Kylo tilted his head, looking at Phasma, but said nothing. Nuanced conversations with Kylo were difficult, thought Phasma. With that stupid helmet on, she couldn’t tell whether he was expressing curiosity or puzzlement or disagreement. Though he might have said the same about her.

“I see,” he said eventually. “You seem to have some way of controlling him, I’ve noticed. How do you do it?”

“At the moment it’s a holodoc called ‘Rathtars and Rancors: Galaxy’s Most Feared’. He knows I won’t let him watch it unless he does what I say.”

Kylo jerked his head and made an uninterpretable noise, then asked, “Why is he even on board this ship?”

“Snoke’s orders. I believe the Supreme Leader wants the boy to develop loyalty to the First Order through having a relationship with his father. The First Order should have a crown prince. Think of the photo opportunities.”

Phasma could see Kylo’s fists clenching, which she decided to interpret as envy. A safe guess, whenever she discussed Hux with Kylo. “Come on. If we create an Empire then Snoke will want a figurehead to lead it. It’s not going to be me and it’s not going to be you. We’re a public relations disaster waiting to happen. Especially you.”

“I appreciate your honesty,” grated Kylo. The helmet didn’t make him sound particularly thankful. “I will be sure to let the Supreme Leader know how his plan is succeeding, next time I have an audience with him.”

Possibly sarcasm, Phasma decided. Kylo might be sarcastic more often than anyone realised, but with the helmet, who knew? She bobbed a half-curtsey and resumed her walk to the Finalizer’s bridge.

* *

Kylo Ren decided it was worth having an annoying child on board when the person Chaali annoyed most was Hux. When they had bridge shifts together, Kylo would look at Hux sidelong whenever a call came over the commlink, watching to see if his face started to flush beet red. If the call was about Chaali, it would, and Kylo would smile to himself under his helmet. He decided to say nothing to Snoke. He’d rather watch Hux’s personal life turn into a trainwreck any day. From experience, he knew there was nothing like family connections for igniting disaster.

Kylo nearly changed his mind one afternoon when he was meditating in his room. His Force-senses told him there was somebody nearby, and there should not have been. It was not a person with the Force, but somehow they were observing him, even though there was nobody in the room but him. He tried to focus his senses and discover where the watcher was hiding.

The ventilation duct.

He opened his eyes and used the Force to yank the grille out of the wall. There was a panicked scuttle in the darkness beyond. Kylo used the Force to pull whoever it was out into the room. Chaali. No surprises there.

“What are you doing?”

“Exploring.” The boy launched into a long justification. Kylo had been a bystander on enough of Hux’s conversations with him to know better than to be sucked into listening. Chaali’s stories never ended.

“Explore somewhere else. If I catch you in there again I will fry you to a crisp.”

“With your lightsaber?” asked Chaali. “Can I see it?”

“No. Out.” Kylo opened the door to the corridor outside and stood next to it meaningfully. Chaali was as usual impervious to hints. Kylo was forced to pick him up by the collar and dump him outside. “And don’t come back!”

That wasn’t the end of it, of course. Chaali made it his life’s work to follow Kylo everywhere, lying in wait for him outside his room or outside the bridge the moment he managed to evade his minders. It got so that Kylo would leave his room with a hand already raised ready to cast a Force-faint, and generally he’d find Chaali outside ready to dodge it. Kylo’s powers worked just fine and he’d hear the satisfying thump of Chaali’s body hitting the deck nearby even if he’d ducked out of sight.

“Two hundred metres maximum,” said Chaali to him in a corridor one day as he trotted past at Phasma’s side like a tie-fighter flanking a cruiser.

“What?” said Kylo. Apparently he’d unwittingly become a test subject for Chaali.

“Your maximum range for Force-faints is 200 metres. I haven’t detected any difference if you’re casting it through durasteel or plasteel or transparisteel. It doesn’t have to be line of sight either.”

“I could do it from a lot further away if I thought you could annoy me from further than 200 metres. More than that and you’re usually out of sight.”

“Out of sight, out of mind,” murmured Phasma. “Though not out of earshot, come to think of it.”

“Well, you know what they say,” said Kylo to her over Chaali’s head. “In space, no-one can hear you scream.”

“I’ll bear that in mind,” said Phasma. “It’s an encouraging thought. Though at the moment we’re getting on quite well. I’m not ready to push him out the airlock yet.”

“What’s the bribe this time?”

“A doco called ‘Galaxy’s Most Horrid’. You’d be surprised at the awful things some small and innocent-looking creatures can do.”

“Not after meeting Chaali, I wouldn’t.”

“You guys are horrible to me,” said Chaali in an injured tone.

* *

Inevitably, Chaali figured out where Kylo did his physical training. Kylo had just worked up a sweat doing leaps and kicks when the door slammed open and a small figure in a black cloak leaped in, swirling and twirling a length of white plasteel pipe in each hand.

“HYAH!!” yelled Chaali. “I made my own lightsabers! Double-ended ones!” He twirled and postured a bit more until Kylo grabbed the lengths of pipe off him. He saw that Chaali had wound tape around the midsections to make handles, drawn wiring on them and stuck on some buttons.

“Phasma made me a cloak too, look.”

“You can’t be a Knight of Ren just by putting a cloak on. You’re seven. You look stupid.”

“Says you. You’re wearing a little black dress,” said Chaali, choosing an unfortunate moment to quote his father.

“I’ll show you lightsabers!” snarled Kylo, dropping Chaali’s copies and drawing his own real one. Chaali froze for a second then jittered up and down on the spot with excitement. Kylo waved his lightsaber inches from Chaali’s face so he could feel the heat of it and smell the ozone it made. Neither of them moved for a moment.

“Are you angry?”

_“What?”_ said Kylo, jaw dropping slightly under his helmet.

“Phasma said I should look at people’s mouths more to know when they’re angry. If you’re angry the ends of your mouth will go down, she says. Or you might get lines above your eyebrows. But I can’t see your face.”

“You think I’m joking?”

“I’m not very good at telling,” said Chaali frankly. “Sometimes I attack people for being nasty to me, then my mum explains that they’re only joking. Phasma says it too. I think people should tell me what they mean, because I don’t think it’s very fair to make me guess.”

Kylo considered taking off his mask so Chaali could get an eyeful of what angry looked like, and then found he wasn’t any more. Chaali was flexing the muscles of his own face and making circles around his eyes with his fingers. He realised Chaali was trying to mimic the look of his mask. Or perhaps trying to experience how the mask’s expression might feel on his own face.

Kylo lowered his lightsaber.

“I think it’s a frowny mask,” said Chaali, after pulling his face muscles up and down with his hands. “What happens when you’re wearing it if you’re not feeling mad?”

“People stay out of my way anyway. Which is what I want.”

“Oh. That makes you happy?”

That was an unanswerable question for Kylo, but luckily Chaali barged on with his own thoughts. “So if you wore a _happy_ mask, people would talk to you and then you would be _unhappy,_ and the happy mask would be _untrue._ Like those Dagobah piranhas that look so cute and friendly with their sparkly scales and puffy little faces and pouty lips, but if you cuddled one it would bite your face off with 3016 needle-sharp teeth!”

“Er…”

“If I make a happy and an angry mask for myself, people will always know whether I want them to talk to me or not.” This conclusion, so satisfying to Chaali, was peculiarly unsettling to Kylo. He started swishing his lightsaber around to dispel his discomfort.

Chaali was smiling to himself. Probably planning how he could make his masks. Then his eyes travelled to the lightsaber. A critical look came across his face.

“Crossguards?”

“Yes. They vent the excess plasma energy.”

“It looks _terrible.”_

“Terrifying.”

“Terrible. I bet there’s something wrong with the kyber crystal. The blade is all unfocused. I was reading about it…”

“Get lost. And I’m not joking!”

Chaali pulled his face into a parody of Kylo’s mask, scooped up his toy lightsabers, and then skipped out the door chanting “I’m going, I’m going, I’m making you happy, I’m making you happy!”

In a weird way, he was right.

Kylo leaned against the door once the boy had gone to make sure he couldn’t come back in. He took off his mask and scratched his itchy, sweaty hair. A look of wry amusement came over his face, and he kneaded his own forehead and eyebrows as though experimenting.

He doubted he’d seen the last of Chaali.

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I dunno, this story is turning into an object lesson in why you should have a clear idea who is the point-of-view character before you start writing. Kylo's threatening to take over this story (maybe as revenge for Spikey taking over so much of his story in When I Am Fit to Speak). 
> 
> Either danger threatens in the next chapter of this story, or I return to Kylo's redemption arc elsewhere. It's a toss-up which is going to happen.


	4. Bad Landing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ren and Hux have a meeting with Snoke. Chaali wants to come too - if only to fly in Ren's sweet new ship. 
> 
> Nobody in their right minds would let him anywhere near it, of course.
> 
>  
> 
> * * *

“What did you learn in class today?” asked Hux. Lately Snoke was insisting that Hux “forge a bond” with his son, whatever that meant, so he’d allocated twenty minutes a day to making conversation with Chaali over dinner.

Chaali looked up from his food, which he was carefully mashing into neat pyramids separated by perfectly straight lines of of clean plate. None of it was any closer to being eaten than it had been ten minutes ago.

“Dorsen Chenalis has a detachable prosthetic leg,” Chaali offered.

“I don’t see how that is relevant _or_ useful. He’s meant to be teaching you military tactics, isn’t he?”

“If he was taken prisoner, he could use his leg to beat his guards unconscious and then escape,” said Chaali. “They’d never expect that! He’s always talking about the element of surprise, so it is relevant.”

“Is that what he told you?” said Hux, wondering if Phasma needed to review her educational programmes.

“No, I thought of it myself. I drew a picture. Do you want to see?” Chaali pulled a sheet of flimsy out of the pile of homework he hadn’t done, which lay on the table beside him. Hux was surprised to see a complex, tidily drawn schematic of a prosthetic leg, and also an accurate diagram of a human skull. “I did the weakest points in red,” Chaali said. “That’s where you’d hit them.” He pointed to the skull’s temples, which were marked with a red cross.

“Have you got any more drawings like that?” asked Hux. It turned out Chaali did. Far more than actual completed homework, it seemed. Chaali’s tongue ran on with explanations while Hux leafed through his stack of drawings: big, detailed, colourful diagrams of ships, lightsabers and fantastical machines. They weren’t practical, but they were strangely attractive, and Hux liked them.

“They’re very good,” he said, and surprised a quick, sweet smile from his son. He realised with mild shock that he’d never seen that expression before on him.

The door to the corridor suddenly opened. Only one person on the Finalizer could do that, and what is more, only one person _would_ do that. Hux barely bothered to glance around.

“Ordinarily people knock first,” he said coldly, wondering what Ren hoped to catch him doing when he intruded like this, unannounced.

“Do I look ordinary to you?” grated Ren from the doorway. Hux turned round, looked him up and down as insolently as possible, and said nothing. There were many things he could have said, none of them complimentary.

“He said ‘ordin _-ar_ -i-ly, not ordin- _ary_ ,’ said Chaali, trying to be helpful.

“Shut up!” chorused both men, breaking off their staring competition.

“Snoke called. He wants us to report to him as soon as possible,” said Ren abruptly. “In person.”

“Nice of you to drop in and pass on his messages,” said Hux, and stopped. What did it mean that Snoke told Ren and not him? “I’ll take a shuttle in the morning.”

“The Renovator is ready to take off now,” said Ren. Hux nearly choked. He’d been wondering what Ren was going to call his ship. This exceeded his worst guesses.

“Is that your new ship?” broke in Chaali. “The Ren O’Vader? It’s an Upsilon-class, isn’t it? It’s got Sienar-Jaemus Fleet Systems’ new 200a sublight ion engines, doesn’t it? How fast does it go?”

“I intend to find out on this trip,” rumbled Ren. His voice, as far as it was possible to tell through the helmet, was gloating.

The last thing Hux wanted to do was go anywhere with Ren. But on the other hand, that new ship…he’d been itching to see what it could do. It was the latest model, and everyone in the First Order was raving about it. Maybe he could put up with a few days of Ren for the chance to fly in the sleek, beautiful craft he’d been admiring.

“All right. Give me an hour to pack and reorganise the bridge schedule, and I’ll join you in the dock,” said Hux. He rose from the table and, ignoring Ren, went to his console to start delegating his work down the chain of command. First of all, Phasma would have to take Chaali.

He didn’t notice Chaali’s bright, concentrated gaze on his back. Ren leaned on the doorway for a moment longer like a dark pillar of discontent before disappearing silently down the corridor. The door shut behind him as if by magic.

* * *

It was one of the pleasures of command to walk through the docking bay through a corridor of stormtroopers drawn up in respectful ranks. He knew Ren made a powerful and enigmatic figure by his side. The frenetic industry of the docking bay came to a standstill and every eye was fixed on them as they approached the sleek black vessel. The commander in charge of the docking bay bowed them up the ramp, and the ship’s hatch closed behind them with a soft hiss and a thump. Both men’s steps quickened with anticipation once they were out of sight of their inferiors, and they almost ran into the cockpit.

“All right, let’s see what she can do,” said Hux, almost grinning. He was barely strapped into the copilot’s seat when Ren jumped the ship up off its landing pad, spun it on its axis and flicked it out of the Finalizer’s docking port like a flung stone.

Of course he’d love to get his hands on the controls himself, but for the moment he just enjoyed the thrill of watching the Finalizer - _his_ Finalizer - flashing past below them as Ren threw the Renovator around and over and under the huge star destroyer. There was a line of tankers approaching the Finalizer like beads on an invisible chain. Ren zipped his ship over and under them like a slalom racer before aiming it towards a moon of the planet the Finalizer was orbiting. He slowly opened up the ship’s throttle, leaning on the joystick with a slow, savage intensity. The moon swelled in their viewport with astonishing speed. Hux glanced over at him. Under that mask, he could imagine Ren’s expression would be some kind of crazed rapture. It was good to know that something could make that black sack of misery happy. But who wouldn’t be happy, flying this thing?

Ren skimmed the Renovator low over the moon’s barren surface. Crater rims flashed by, a series of sharp teeth that felt far too close. From the angle of Ren’s helmet, Hux could tell he was waiting for him to flinch. Hux made a show of settling comfortably into the co-pilot’s luxuriously padded seat instead.

“Very impressive,” was all he said. He would have to enquire about buying Sienar-Jaemus Fleet Systems’ next model for himself, he thought. It would be even better.

“We’ll see how it handles in atmosphere when we get to Snoke’s world,” said Ren. Obligingly, Hux punched the coordinates into the navcomputer. It beeped a moment later to show it had plotted a course.

“That was quick,” said Hux admiringly. Ren nodded and made a pleased sound. He reached for the hyperdrive switch. There was the slightest kick from the engines and a moment later the viewscreen flared blue.

“Very smooth,” commented Hux. “How long til we get there?”

“Five days,” said Ren. That was fast, but both men stared out the viewscreen wondering what they were going to do in each others’ company for that long.

“You’ve done well. Very nice ship. Now, I have work to do,” said Hux, and went to claim a cabin for himself.

*    *    *

  
The ship dropped out of hyperspace a lot less smoothly a day later. It woke Hux up. Instantly alert, he rolled out of his bunk and went into the cockpit. The stars were spinning points outside. The cockpit had its own much livelier constellation of warning lights flashing and blinking. Ren ran in a moment later, unmasked, hair dishevelled. He leaned over the main console, stabbing angrily at the controls.

“Mass proximity alert….we’re too close to something…” he muttered.

“Well yes, that planet there,” said Hux, pointing out the side viewport. The ship had yawed around to reveal that they were tumbling towards a large blue world.

“Where the frak are we?” yelled Ren.

“Calm down, we need to get the sublights going before we fall into it!” said Hux. Ren snarled and jumped into the pilot’s seat. A few seconds later he was swearing a lot worse, because Sienar-Jaemus Fleet Systems’ vaunted 200a sublight ion engines wouldn’t ignite. Hux tapped and swiped rapidly at the ship’s computer interfaces, but it was as though whole sections of the ship’s nervous system were dead. Ren continued swearing, slapping at buttons and shoving the busbars and joystick around with increasing violence. Finally he was reduced to hammering on the console with his fists. The premium-quality metal didn’t even dent.

Meanwhile the planet below them was growing bigger.

“We have manual control of — uh, of the sensor wings,” said Hux.

“What is that going to do? Are we going to flap them up and down like a frakking _bird_ once we hit the atmosphere?”

“If you extend them fully, we can come down in a controlled glide,” said a small, high voice behind them. Hux felt a chill run down his back. Without thinking about it, he flung himself around to hold onto Ren, who had lunged out of his chair, ready to transfer his furious punches from the ship’s console to the small figure in the doorway behind them.

“None of this is my fault!” said Chaali, holding his hands up in front of him. Hux and Ren landed in a tangled heap in front of him, Hux with his arm around Ren’s throat.

“If he’s touched the engines I’ll kill him!” gargled Ren, as well as he could with his windpipe half choked off. Hux could feel the Force building in Ren like a malevolent static discharge. Ren would kill him.

“He’s my _son,_ and Snoke would not allow you to….”

The mention of Snoke’s name did the trick. Ren broke Hux’s stranglehold and shoved him off without a word, but did nothing more to him or Chaali. They sat up, breathing heavily.

“How the hell did you….?” Hux started, but stopped. It was pointless. _Of course_ Chaali was capable of hiding himself for days in some cavity. He was that kind of child. There was almost certainly a locker somewhere awash with empty drink bottles and ration wrappers.

Chaali stepped over the two of them, flipped up a cover under the main console and started cranking something hidden in the footwell. A mechanical groan travelled through the ship’s hull. Hux could see the sensor wings levelling down and deforming into a slightly arched, bird-wing shape.

“The upsilon-class has an extra safety feature. It can assume an aerodynamic profile for controlled flight in atmospheric conditions,” said Chaali. He had probably read the owner’s manual from cover to cover, thought Hux, and he had total recall of the most boring minutiae. Or not so boring, in this case.

Chaali looked at them expectantly. Ren stood up, fingers twitching. Hux didn’t know whether he himself wanted to hug the child or strangle him, but he doubted Ren was feeling so conflicted.

“It doesn’t fly itself, though,” said Chaali, and started for the pilot’s seat. Both men lunged towards him and heaved him out of the chair.

“You’re not piloting this thing _ever!”_ said Ren between gritted teeth, taking the seat himself.

The atmosphere was beginning to form a burning curve around the ship’s nose and the ship was shuddering in an unpleasant way. Ren manipulated the joystick, but nothing seemed to happen.

“The other joystick,” said Chaali softly, pointing. “That one’s for spaceflight.” Ren swore but took his advice. Hux strapped himself into the seat beside him.

“Do you even know how to fly a glider?” he muttered, hoping Chaali couldn’t hear.

“I’ll use the Force,” snarled Ren. “How hard can it be?” He pulled on the second joystick, and the ship responded somehow.

“Strap in Chaali, it’s going to be a rough ride,” called Hux over his shoulder.

And it was.

* * *

 

 

 

 

 


	5. Galaxy's Most Horrid

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Phasma had been hinting that Hux could do with some time at a beach. She probably didn't have this place in mind, though.
> 
> * * *

The Renovator could glide but it couldn’t float. Ren had tried to bring it down on a smooth stretch of coastal estuary, but the shoreward breeze lofted it up and dropped it past the sand-dunes he’d been aiming for. They had been forced to paddle ashore together on a slab of insulation torn from the fuselage by the impact.

“We’re lucky we dropped out of hyperspace near _anything!”_ said Ren later, as they sat gloomily on the shore and watched the Renovator sink.

“The odds against that are approximately…” started Chaali.

“Shut up!” chorused the two men.

“Why?”

“You sound like the droid on that stupid children’s show,” said Hux.

“Sounds like a droid I know personally. One I don’t like very much,” said Ren. He jabbed a piece of driftwood savagely into the sand until it snapped.

“Anyway, it wasn’t luck. I thought the navcomp calculated our course rather too quickly. I had a look at the readouts…” said Hux

“While we were crashing?” interrupted Ren skeptically.

“Yes, because you wouldn’t let me pilot, remember? Anyway, I don’t know what the computer _did,_ but it _didn’t_ calculate a course for Snoke’s world.”

Chaali stiffened slightly and stared at the Renovator, which was forming a new breakwater at the mouth of the estuary. Two small setting suns gilded the waves gently curling over the broken stumps of its wings. Something caught Chaali’s attention. He sunk onto his belly and slunk across the sand towards the shallows. Hux watched him for a moment but Chaali’s random progress by stops and starts seemed to have no purpose.

“I’ve been told I needed to take more leave. Phasma put a promo for some beach resort on my holopad last week,” said Hux.

Ren didn’t even laugh. He just burrowed in the sand with his sodden boots. “Some beach.” He brightened slightly. “At least we didn’t land in those hills. We would have hit a cliff. Some of those rocks could gut our ship like a fish.”

“Like this!” said Chaali, suddenly appearing from a pile of seaweed that had somehow crept up on them. Chaali had a knife in one hand and a writhing silvery shape in the other. Trust Chaali to have a knife on him somewhere, thought Hux. A quick movement of Chaali’s arm, and the creature was still. Something wet splatted onto the sand at their feet. Hux and Ren winced out of the way.

“What’s that?” asked Hux.

“A fish. I think. A face-sucker perch.” Chaali looked at the thing in his hand. “Why hasn’t anyone made a fire?” he asked.

“How?” snarled Ren. Chaali stared at him in disbelief. Hux sensed Ren sinking in Chaali’s estimation.

“I’m getting wood. Somebody has to come with me,” said Chaali. “With a weapon. In case there are monsters.”

Ren sniffed angrily and didn’t get up. Hux got to his feet and followed Chaali.

Chaali climbed the low dune behind them and paused at the top, sniffing the breeze and turning his head from side to side. Hux stood beside him. There was a flat space of estuary before them, unbroken by the white ruffles of foam that marked the sea behind them. Low hills were visible against the darkening sky.

“What are you looking at?” he asked.

“Where to camp,” said Chaali. He pointed. “Over there by that big log it’ll be out of the wind, which will blow seaward all night. All the driftwood’s washed up against that bend. The best place to look for a freshwater creek will be below that sort of notch in the hills. Come on.”

Ren must have reconsidered his sulk. During this speech Hux heard him come stomping up the sand dune to join them.

“The sea was coming closer,” he muttered.

“Tide’s coming in, then,” said Chaali. “You can see how far it comes up, look. That spot by the log is above it.”

Hux couldn’t see anything in particular, but if Chaali knew how to interpret different textures of sand, good for him.

They reached the big bleached log Chaali had pointed out. It didn’t seem like particularly good shelter. Chaali ran ahead and pranced around the log doing star jumps and waving his arms frantically.

“Grackle! Grackle! Grackle!” he yelled.

“What are you doing?” asked Hux. Ren stared away from them both as though wishing he were somewhere else, or hoping he would be soon.

“Scaring the grackles. They like to burrow under logs,” said Chaali.

“How would you know? You’ve never been here before,” said Hux.

“I think I saw this planet on _Galaxy’s Most Horrid._ I saw an episode with the face-sucker perches and grackles and stuff,” said Chaali.

“You caught the face sucker perch without too much trouble. It was just a fish,” said Ren.

“They hunt by sight. I drew a face on a piece of wood and waved it in the shallows to lure it away from its friends,” said Chaali. “Face-sucker perches have three million friends.”

“More than me, then,” said Ren, and went to sit on the log.

 _“Nooooo!!!”_ yelled Chaali. The sand around Ren exploded in a spray and Ren made a Force-leap clear of the chaos of many-jointed legs that appeared out of the ground all around him. There were a few minutes of hot work with the lightsaber as whatever it was tried to wrap itself around them. It only stopped completely when Hux aimed a blaster at a faceted eye on a stalk that suddenly poked out of the sand under his feet.

After it was over and Chaali had finished running in circles shrieking, they cleared the body parts out of the way. There was indeed a comfortable-looking hollow under the log, now there wasn’t a grackle in it any more.

  
“I don’t understand how yelling ‘grackle’ first was supposed to help,” said Hux, trying to wipe ichor off his uniform with sand.

“It’s their mating call. Grackles are terrified of the opposite sex, so if you shout ‘grackle’ they’ll lie still and hide for days,” said Chaali seriously. “You could sit right down on one and it wouldn’t move. Other predators will avoid this place until they realise the grackle is gone, so we’re safe for a while.”

Chaali slapped at a small blue insect that landed on his arm. It made a crackling noise and dropped spinning on the sand before Chaali’s foot put an end to it. “Nightfliers are coming out though. We need a fire to keep them away.”

“Well. Let’s get some firewood, shall we?” said Hux after a short silence.

Ren was enthusiastic about fires, anyway. He joined them in dragging up enough driftwood from the water’s edge to build an enormous mound in front of the log. Chaali chose some of the branches and concentrated on fitting them together to extend the shelter around the hollow under the log. Hux helped him. It was surprisingly satisfying finding pieces that fit, like assembling a puzzle. Chaali cut armfuls of tough dune grass and to fill in the gaps.

By the time they were finished it was dark. Ren hit the firewood pile with a flourish of his lightsaber and it burst into flame. Chaali clapped.

“Once it gets really hot, we have to throw on wet seaweed,” he said.

“Won’t that stink?” asked Ren.

“That’s the point. We have to keep the nightfliers away.” Chaali had a pile of seaweed ready; he threw some on the fire and a terrible smell enveloped them.

“Stop that!” said Ren, fishing out the seaweed with a stick. “I’m not sleeping with that stench.”

“But the nightfliers! Those things lock onto you and suck the nutrients out of your body,” said Chaali. “Until you turn grey.”

“You can stop showing off how much you know now,” said Ren nastily. “What sort of dangers do you think I faced when I joined the Knights? We trained on worse planets than this!”

“The boy knows what he’s talking about, Ren!” said Hux sharply. Maybe too sharply, because Ren stood up and stalked off into the night, muttering something about using the Force.

“Have fun staying awake all night then,” said Hux loudly.

“How _much_ worse?” Chaali shouted after Ren.

“Lava! Evil spirits!” came an exasperated voice from the darkness.

 _“Really?”_ Chaali’s eyes lit up with excitement and he started up, ready to pursue Ren to get the whole story. Hux stopped him with a warning hand on his arm.

“I think he’s in a bad mood.”

“Oh. Why?” Chaali looked genuinely puzzled. He was having the time of his life, obviously. Hux had never seen the boy look so relaxed.

After long thought, Chaali said, “Does he hate the smoke that much?”

  
“I think he’s in a hurry to get to Snoke, Chaali. Or worried that Snoke will get angry if we don’t get there in time.”

“Is Snoke bad when he’s angry?”

“Yes,” said Hux, but didn’t feel like going into detail. For once, Chaali let the subject drop.

Once they got used to the smell of smoking seaweed, it was quite pleasant to sit leaning on their giant log staring into the flames. Chaali wrapped the face-sucker perch in leaves and let it cook on the embers. It didn’t taste too bad. Hux followed Chaali’s guidance making grass nests to lie in, and when they’d finished eating, Chaali curled up at Hux’s side.

“We can see how far the tide goes down tomorrow,” said Chaali sleepily. “Maybe we can get more things out of the Renovator, if the water’s low enough.”

Right. Tides. That made sense.

“I wonder how we ended up here,” said Hux.

“Probably hit ‘favourites’ by mistake,” said Chaali.

“‘Favourites?’ Who’d want to come here?”

Chaali shifted uncomfortably and Hux felt his breathing quicken.

“Did you, ah, touch the ship’s navcomputer before we came on board?” Hux asked.

There was a long silence. Hux could see Chaali’s eyes glittering in the flames. He seemed to be thinking hard.

“I just played with it a bit. It asked me where I wanted to go, so I told it….”

Another long silence.

“Promise me one thing, Chaali.”

Chaali looked up at him nervously. “Don’t ever, _ever_ tell Ren you touched the navcomputer. Don’t even think it. He _will_ kill you, and I mean that.”

Chaali nodded and relaxed against Hux. After a while, Hux curled up in his grass nest and put his arm around the boy for warmth.

“Wake me when you need me to keep the fire going,” said Chaali sleepily. “That’s how we did it on Borial.”

Hux watched the stars and imagined Chaali lying like this on a beach by a fire with his mother instead of him. It was a strange thought.

 

 


	6. You Are Here

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hux, Ren and Chaali try to get the ship working enough to call for help, or failing that, at least find out where they are.
> 
> * * *

“I’m thirsty.” There was a sudden cold patch against Hux’s back as Chaali left. Dawn light was filtering in through the chinks in their shelter. Hux rubbed his smoke-reddened eyes and immediately got sand in them. He found the Hutt curse-word for that.

Chaali must have kept up his watch on the fire, because it was still smoking gently. The nightfliers had stayed away, or if they hadn’t, their bites didn’t leave a mark. Hux felt pretty depleted anyway.

Hux had a raging thirst too, so he followed Chaali out into the cool morning air. A few minutes’ walk along the edge of the estuary brought them to a place where a stream flowed out of a gully between low scrubby hills. Beside the stream they found Ren, asleep in a circle of fist-sized dead insects.

“I think he used the Force to keep them off,” said Chaali admiringly. Ren stirred and opened one eye a crack.

“Go away. I’m sleeping.” He looked like hell.

“We had a lovely sleep,” lied Hux. Sand wasn’t warm at night nor, after a few hours, was it particularly soft.

Chaali and Hux drank from the stream, and Hux splashed his face to wash off the greasy residue the smoke had left on his skin. When Hux stood up he noticed how much lower the water in the estuary was compared to the night before.

“I suppose that’s low tide. I wonder if the ship is uncovered? We could get supplies.”

Chaali scampered off immediately towards the dunes that blocked their view of the sea, bare feet skipping through the loose sand with an ease that Hux could only envy. He laboured after the boy in his stiff, sand-filled boots. By the time he’d crested the dunes, Chaali was standing on the shore looking out at the Renovator. Quite a lot of it was exposed, including the top hatch, and it wasn’t very far from the beach. Hux came down to stand beside Chaali, who seemed to think the water was dangerous.

“Shall we risk the face-sucker perches?” Hux asked. “They didn’t eat us last time. In fact, we ate one of them. We’re winning.”

“I’m really hungry,” said Chaali. “But I think I saw a volt-shark.” He shivered, and stared longingly at the ship. They waited for ten minutes staring at the shallow waters that stood between them and food. There were shadows in the water, which could be something or nothing. It was hard to tell. Just as Hux was deciding they should try to cross, a larger shadow with a clearly visible pointed fin shot out from under the ship. Immediately, part of the sandy bottom detached itself and reared up out of the water, revealing a set of teeth as long as Hux’s arm. It was difficult to make out anything _but_ teeth. More finny creatures exploded out from under the ship in a panic. The sand-coloured toothy thing pursued them out to sea in a flurry of foam.

“A ravenous carpetfish!” breathed Chaali, in awe. “They can grow as big as our ship!”

“No field rations for us, then.”

“Kylo could use the Force and jump across. Or move the ship to land,” said Chaali. “I’ll go and get him.” He ran off.

“Don’t…” began Hux, then shrugged.

A few minutes later Chaali came back with Ren, who looked angry and dishevelled. Ren must have been hungry too, though. He gave Hux a surly nod and stood next to him, frowning at the ship. Hux could feel the tension gathering in him and recognised the abstracted look he got when he was concentrating on the Force. Hux moved a few steps away, to be on the safe side, but Ren just stood there with his fists clenched. Chaali stared at him, waiting for something to happen. Nothing did.

“I read about how Luke Skywalker lifted an X-wing out of the swamps of Dagobah,” said Chaali. “Just using the Force!”

That was the catalyst. A spasm of pure rage crossed Ren’s face and he brought his fists up with a jerk. The Renovator lurched up and wallowed gracelessly through the air for a second before crashing onto the beach next to them. Water streamed out of it and Chaali ran in circles in and out of the cascades, shrieking and getting wet. Ren stuck his fingers in his ears and jumped to the ship’s top-hatch in an easy Force-leap. Hux swung himself up after him.

The cabin was a mess, of course, and all the electronics were fried. Ren flipped a few switches to be sure.

“It wasn’t built for underwater use,” said Chaali, peering in through the broken viewport.

“I KNOW,” Ren snarled. Hux waded back to the galley and collected up sealed packets of field rations. A few minutes later they were all sitting on the sand under one of the ship’s broken wings, tearing into their food. It almost tasted good.

“Thank you Kylo,” said Chaali happily. Ren did a double take at his smiling face, obviously struck, as Hux had been, by how comfortable Chaali seemed.

“You’re loving this, aren’t you?” he grumbled.

“I like field rations the best,” said Chaali seriously. Ren gave him a disgusted look.

Hux was struck by a thought. “Chaali, did you recognise this planet from Galaxy’s Most Horrid?”

“Yes. It’s got…”

“Never mind what animals it’s got. Does it have people?”

“It has a science station, where they study the….”

“Where, do you know?”

Chaali thought for a moment. “The main continent. On the coast, because diamond voles destroyed anything they built inland. Diamond voles can…”

“We need to find that science station. Or contact them, or something.” Hux climbed back up into the ship’s cockpit to see if any of the comms gear could be persuaded to work. He hoped Ren wasn’t paying enough attention to draw any conclusions about why his ship’s computer had plotted a course for what was apparently Chaali’s favourite place. When he looked out the viewport, though, Ren seemed be withdrawing into some sort of meditative Force-trance. Or perhaps just falling asleep. He was going to get sunburn, Hux thought, with that white skin of his.

Chaali had found a stick and was making big patterns up and down the beach. Hux leaned out and yelled at him. “Come in here and help me dismantle this!” Chaali was swarming up the side of the Renovator in a flash. He jumped in and helped Hux crack open the console and lift out components. Chaali was no use at fixing things, but he sure could dismantle stuff. From his point of view, this trip could hardly get any better.

After two hours they’d disassembled, dried and reassembled parts of the ship’s navigation system and comms unit, but they couldn’t wake even a spark from any of its power systems.

“What else can you remember from the manual?” asked Hux.

“The torpedoes have onboard batteries!” said Chaali suddenly. They stared at each other in excitement for a moment, then scrambled for the ship’s munitions bay. Eagerly they dismounted one of the torpedoes and started taking it apart with the toolkit strapped to the wall. On this subject, their knowledge was about equal: Chaali had read the manual, and Hux had done years of practical and theoretical engineering. The work went easily, and soon they were in possession of a small red box and some wiring. They nearly fell over each other getting back to the cockpit to wire up the systems they’d salvaged.

Hux leaned out of the smashed viewport. Ren was stretched out on the sand below, oblivious of his sunburn and the approaching tide. “Ren, come up! We might be able to get the comms unit working!”

Ren woke with a start, fumbling for his lightsaber and rolling reflexively onto his feet in one movement. He climbed up to join them. Chaali was jittering with excitement over the comms console and getting in the way. Ren picked him up and dumped him behind him. Chaali squeezed back in between them.

“Show me,” Ren said.

“Let’s start by finding out where we are,” Hux said, and hooked the nav system up to the battery via the chain of power-stepdowns they’d kluged together. A screen flickered to life, showing bursts of green specks before some words coalesced.

YOU ARE ON HARAX said the screen.

“Yes, but where on Harax?” muttered Hux, twiddling the controls. A planetary map appeared showing major landmasses and features. A green light blinked on one of the coasts. YOU ARE HERE.

There was a red dot marked beside a long inlet some way south of them. HARAX BIOLOGICAL RESEARCH STATION it said. It was the only other location marked on the planet.

“Let’s zoom in and see if we can get some idea of the distance…” said Ren, reaching past Hux for the controls. But the nav system screen flashed and went dark, and an ominous frizzling sound flared up and died out from inside it. Ren’s hands curled into dangerous fists and he stepped back, his jaw working angrily.

“I’d say under 200 kilometres, anyway,” said Hux as calmly as he could, although he wanted to smash the stupid machine too.

They had almost the same result with the comms system. The science station was transmitting, and they could pick up garbled words through the hiss of static, but they couldn’t get through to them. Chaali kept trying to butt in with useless suggestions inspired by his wide consumption of children’s fantasy fiction.

“No, we can’t centre it with spirit gems!” yelled Ren, shoving Chaali out of the way for the fifth time. “There are no such things as spirit gems!”

“But in the Mandalorian Chronicles, they sent their warriors to….”

“Shut up!” chorused Hux and Ren. Ren hit the comms unit and it stuttered. A rapid-fire display of message headers flickered on the screen as it connected briefly to a First Order hypercomm channel. It was so quick that Hux only made out one header because it was so unexpected: the royal blue insignia of the New Republic’s Department of Justice.

The only person Hux knew who had any contact with the New Republic was Julilla Do sen-Hutt, and she was safely on her way to the next Galaxy.

They couldn’t read the messages anyway. Connection failed, said the comms unit in blinking lights. After a tense half-hour of trying to contact the First Order or, failing that, the Harax outpost, the comms device spat sparks and died too. Ren swore and kicked the bulkhead.

“Well I guess we have a long walk ahead of us,” said Hux. “I suppose the ship is equipped with emergency planetfall packs?”

It was. Chaali gloated happily over the packs of rations, waterbottles, sleeping bags, ropes and firelighters, all packed and dry in their sealed locker. Hux was relieved to note that they included insect netting. Ren seemed to know something about hiking. Silently he dumped about half the weight out of one of the packs, cinched it down to a smaller size, and handed it to Chaali. They all shouldered their packs and splashed their way to the hatch. Hux and Chaali jumped out first and waited on the sand below. Ren didn’t follow them. Instead they heard the thump and buzz of his lightsaber followed by muffled swearing and the sound of heavy, sparking blows. It sounded like he was destroying the cockpit.

Chaali jumped up and down with excitement. “I guess he doesn’t like his new ship so much! He must be wrecking it! I want to watch….”

Hux caught him before he could scramble up and get decapitated by one of Ren’s rages.

“Wait til I get next year’s model, ay? We’ll see how he feels then,” said Hux, smiling.

“Oh yes! I read about that one. The Zeta model. Apparently it’s going to have….”

Ren jumped down beside them in time to catch the beginning of a three-hour monologue from Chaali about Sienar-Jaemus Fleet Systems ships. It did not make him happy. He stomped off as fast as he could towards what was presumably South, and they followed him, Chaali skipping easily over the sand and talking non-stop.

They had to ford the river that flowed into the estuary (“The Zeta can aquaplane to land on water planets!”). Amazingly, nothing ate them. (“The Zeta’s bio-sensors can detect dangerous life-forms within a 10km radius when it’s parked on flat ground!”). Ren had his lightsaber out just in case. Hux wondered what happened if you stuck a lightsaber into flowing water.

They followed the coast, scrambling up low headlands that separated long sandy beaches. It was easy going, but Chaali never really stopped talking until it was time to flip open their pop-up shelter and eat their dinner rations. They hadn’t found another grackle-log to shield them from the wind, which was getting up, and the shelter wasn’t really adequate on its own. Hux and Ren curled up in angry damp piles as far from each other as possible, which wasn’t very far.

“Somebody needs to take first watch,” said Hux.

“Well it’s not going to be me,” snarled Ren. He’d rescued his black cloak from the Renovator, and now he pulled it over his head. Hux sat up and stared through the insect netting over the entrance. The stars were smothered by sea-spray, and planetary night was blacker than space ever was.

Chaali swallowed his last ration cube and puffed up his sleeping bag. “It’s as soft as a cloud.” He sighed with contentment and curled up to sleep between them.

 


	7. Unhappy Campers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hux, Ren and Chaali's only chance of rescue demands a long trek through the wilds of Harax, a planet that rated three episodes of the popular holovid series Galaxy's Most Horrid.
> 
> * * *

For years afterwards, this was what Hux remembered of their long walk south: Chaali ranging ahead of him, barefoot, dirtier by the day, his long light hair blazing briefly in the forest’s quick sunlight.

Hux had always seen children as unformed adults, and therefore defective. They were inefficient, tiresome and mostly useless. Certainly that was how he’d been made to feel in his childhood. But he came to see that here in this word, Chaali was beautifully complete in himself, moving easily over the rocks and fallen logs, comfortable with long days of travel.

At night they all sheltered from the nightfliers under the insect netting that came with the ship’s emergency planetfall pack. Chaali took his share of the night watches seriously, and Hux would wake at midnight to see Chaali sitting up straight, eyes glittering, his hair a pale flag in the starlight. When he slept curled between Hux and Ren, his body radiated heat like a small nuclear pile. It made up for a lot of his annoyances, said Ren, and Hux found himself agreeing.

During the day, Chaali ran ahead and found the easiest paths before doubling back to them, full of chatter about everything he’d seen or thought. Everything interested him, and he was a mine of information about the plants and creatures that lived in this forested world. He talked most about the quetzals which nested, he said, in the bluffs above the coast.

Ren and Hux had no intention of climbing so high, but their path crossed a river that was too wide and deep to cross safely, especially since such rivers were a favoured haunt of flashmob eels, according to Chaali. So they started tacking up into the hills, which were gouged with steep, tiresome tributary ravines.

“We should go along the ridges. There’s less undergrowth and we might see ahead further,” said Ren.

“We’ll get lost. We need to stick close to this river so we can cross it as soon as it’s narrow enough,” said Hux.

“Speaking of lost, where’s Chaali?” asked Ren. Chaali was constantly disappearing, and Ren seemed to enjoy pointing it out to Hux as though Chaali’s elusiveness was Hux’s fault.

They took turns shouting until Chaali came scampering down out of a belt of higher trees.

“Stop running off. You’ll get lost!” said Hux.

“I knew where I was,” said Chaali. “I was up there.” He pointed, and then held out a clump of crumbly black stuff. “Look! I think this is quetzal poo. It’s very rich in carbon!”

“I’m not a mind reader. What if we decide we need to cross the river, and we can’t find you?”

“Kylo is a mind reader though. I’d just wait for him to find me using the Force,” said Chaali.

“I might not try very hard,” muttered Ren.

“I’m not having anyone left behind on this mission,” said Hux irritably. Some mission, he thought. If they ever got to Snoke’s planet, it better turn out to be important.

“Why did Snoke want to see us, anyway?” he asked Ren. Ren’s face took on a shuttered look, and Hux knew better than to expect anything more than a partial truth from him.

“He has plans, you know,” Ren said in a low voice, as though the surrounding trees might care. “We will make the Galaxy great again. As it was in the old days of the Empire.”

“Yes, I know. But now, specifically….”

Ren shrugged. Hux could tell he didn’t know, and not for the first time, he was glad he usually dealt with Snoke at a distance. Somebody else could translate the headache of Snoke’s vague and unpredictable directions. All Hux had to do was follow orders.

Ren seemed to remember something suddenly. “Why is the New Republic sending lawyers after you? Snoke said he’d been approached by them.”

“I expect Snoke’s broken some law of theirs. Who cares?”

“No, he said they were looking for you.”

“Then I expect _I’ve_ broken some New Republic law. I don’t keep up with them.”

Chaali called over from where he was hanging upside-down bouncing on a branch.

“When we see Snoke, I want to show him my lightsaber skills!”

“No!” said Ren and Hux at once.

“You don’t have any. And you don’t have the Force either, so stop asking me if you do!” growled Ren.

Chaali’s lack of fear would have got him killed half a dozen times over. Luckily Ren possessed a very keen sense of danger. Something to do with the Force, Hux supposed.

Ren could tell _when_ they were in danger, but he didn’t always know _why._ That was where Chaali’s love of all things horrid came in handy. Like the time when Hux stepped on a large ant that released a sharp, unpleasant smell which made them all wrinkle their noses.

“We’re in danger,” said Ren, for the third time that morning. (The first time had been cannonbirds, and they’d all just ducked in time. The second, a series of sticky snares Chaali had been wildly excited to find, and highly lucky to avoid falling into).

They all stood still. Chaali had his head up, listening and sniffing the breeze. Hux listened too, and became aware of a rustling movement in the leaf litter all around them.

“Fire bull ants!” yelled Chaali suddenly, tossing his head in the direction where the sound was the loudest. “Run!”

And run they did, with a swarming column of insect rage ravening behind them, stripping the ground of everything as it came. That explained the strangely bare straight paths they’d encountered, thought Hux, casting a wild look behind him as they charged through the undergrowth. Uncountable insect eyes glittered back at him, and he vaulted over logs and small gullies in an effort to escape.

“Head for water!” yelled Chaali, plunging downhill into ever-thickening brush. Behind them they could hear the shivering sound of millions of leaves shredding at the advance of their pursuers, and tiny insect claws pattering over the bare earth.

Suddenly the ground seemed to disappear from under them and they burst out of the undergrowth into sickening freefall before hitting the jade-green depths of the river. Hux remembered the shock of cold water, and opening his eyes to the sight of bubbles churning around him in golden bars of sunlight. It would have been beautiful if the water hadn’t been so deep and the current so strong, and the fear of flashmob eels so present to his mind. They could strip a smashmouth rhino to a skeleton in minutes, according to Chaali.

He caught sight of a black figure with a tail streaming behind it, and realised it was Ren in his cloak, cutting through the water below him like a shark. No doubt using the Force. Hux had no such advantage, and flailed his way up to the surface as best he could.

Where was Chaali? Hux could see small arms and legs splashing downstream from him, caught in the fast water. He started pulling himself after him, grabbing breaths when he could, his arms working like a machine. Still it seemed hopeless. He was approaching the other shore, but Chaali’s splashing seemed feebler, or further away. He wondered how long Chaali could stay afloat.

Then Chaali seemed to lift out of the water. Something invisible was drawing him across the surface towards the far bank. Chaali shouted in surprise and flapped his arms like a demented bird.

The next moment a strange force seemed to seize Hux too, pulling him irresistibly through the water until he fetched up on the rocks on the other side. The current dragged him past the slick stones and he scrabbled at them, finally hooking his hands round a wooden snag and pulling himself slowly out of the water. He had no idea where Ren or Chaali had gone.

A minute later he heard a series of high hacking coughs and Chaali crawled over a rock and dropped down next to him, spitting water.

“I think Kylo pulled me out,” said Chaali when he could speak. “I felt something pulling me along. I flew!”

“Let’s go find him, then,” said Hux. He didn’t want to think about Ren saving his life. Or Chaali’s, for that matter.

The riverbank on this side was bare rock, sculpted into smooth humps and hollows by the long action of water. They clambered around on it until they found Ren curled up in a sort of cup of sunwarmed stone. He seemed exhausted, barely opening his eyes to show he knew they were there.

“Did you use the Force to save me?” asked Chaali.

“Yes,” said Ren, pointedly ignoring Hux. Fine, Hux thought. So Ren didn’t want to admit to saving him. He’d probably bring it up later and hold it over him somehow.

Ren lay still in his wet cloak, filling the stone hollow like a black puddle. Chaali stared at him for a while.

“Are you very tired? It’s only midday.”

“It took a lot of Force to get you out of the river.”

“You weren’t this tired when you pulled the Renovator out of the sea.”

“A spaceship doesn’t resist believing it can fly,” he said shortly.

This side of the river was closer to the high bluffs, which were separated from them by tracts of trees with cloudy soft foliage. It was nearly sunset before Ren felt well enough to move again, and they made their way up to the foot of the bluffs, hoping to find shelter. There was a shallow cave there, scooped out by ancient floods, and they made camp there, lighting a fire to dry their clothes.

Hux took the middle watch, and was disturbed by soft popping noises from somewhere above them: the sort of mysterious noise that is threatening because it is so completely inexplicable. Whatever it was it didn’t come any closer.

When he woke Chaali for the dawn watch, Chaali listened a while and said, “It’s quetzals! They’re cracking carbohydrates to get hydrogen. They need hydrogen to fly, you know!”

“Really? Wake me up if they come any closer,” said Hux, wondering if this was another one of Chaali’s fantasies.

When he woke up it was late and Chaali was gone. Ren was sleeping like the dead, so Hux left him and went to look for Chaali. There was dew in the soft grass under the cloud-trees, and Hux could see Chaali’s footprints. He followed the trail they made as it wound through the forest, which was wreathed in a low mist. He rounded an outcrop of rocks at the foot of the bluff and saw something that would stick in his mind as long as he lived.

Chaali was standing in a clearing, utterly still, holding out his hand to a blue feathered serpent that floated in lazy coils in front of him. There was a scatter of colour at Chaali’s feet, and Hux recognised the wrappers from the sugar packets in their supplies.

Chaali held out a handful of sugar to the barbed and bearded head of the quetzal. It was utterly silent in the clearing, everything muffled by the gentle mist. The quetzal was like the mist too, drifting gently above the ground at shoulder-height to Chaali.

It dipped its head and pulled back its wrinkled black lips to expose a frightening array of metallic-looking teeth. Then a thin blue tongue came out and licked delicately at the sugar on Chaali’s palm. He shivered with delight but did not move. The quetzal shivered too, and gave a little mew of happiness, sweeping up the rest of the sugar with quick strokes of its tongue. Then it nudged Chaali’s hand with its head. He scratched its thorny head and stroked the long electric-blue feathers of its ruff. The quetzal looked at him for a moment, then spiralled around Chaali, evidently looking for more sugar.

“That’s all I have,” he said softly. The quetzal flared out its crest-feathers, shook its head, and turned away. Chaali watched it ripple slowly towards the treetops. Its plumage glowed a celestial blue as it rose into the sunlight above.

Chaali turned to him then, the wonder still vivid on his face. His eyes were the same colour as the quetzal. Yet they were Hux’s own eyes too. He saw the resemblance, even in that face whose history was so different from his own.

In that moment he let go of the son he had wanted, with his neatly trimmed hair and perfect uniform and mute respect for First Order principles. That boy would never exist. Hux felt something break in his chest at the thought. The feeling that replaced it was something new. Warm. Maybe even proud.

“It was a quetzal. Wasn’t it beautiful?” said Charlie quietly.

“It was. Happy now?”

“Yes,” Chaali breathed.

“Me too.”

“Come on, Chaali,” he said. He reached for his hand, and after a pause, Chaali took it. Hux had never held his hand before, other than to stop him escaping. They started back to their camp together.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


	8. Imitation is the sincerest form...

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kylo Ren gets sick of having a little shadow following him everywhere
> 
>  
> 
> * * *

The days settled into an easy pattern after that, and Ren lost some of his stiff-backed grumpiness. As they walked, he and Hux passed some of the long hours talking about places and people they knew in the First Order. They discussed their future with Snoke and how his long gamble to rule the Galaxy might play out.

Chaali stayed closer to them both, but was still liable to dart off if something caught his attention. It bothered Hux that Ren could use the Force to sense what Chaali was up to. It would have been so useful for a parent to have that talent, he thought. Worse, Chaali’s adventures seemed to interest Ren, and he would run towards Chaali’s excited shrieks, apparently keen to see what awful creature he’d had bailed up this time. It was a strange reversal of the way Chaali used to haunt Ren’s footsteps on the Finalizer.

On the other hand, there were times when Hux put his arm around Chaali and was surprised by the way his son leaned into him for a moment. Sometimes Chaali sought him out to tell him something, in preference to Ren. Ren would look at them both for a brief, burning moment, before a closed look came over his face. Hux guessed it was envy, but in this instance Ren’s envy did not make him happy.

It had always been understood that one did not ask Ren about his family.

They reached the long inlet where the research station lay, and a few days later they saw the sun shining on some structure on the opposite shore. Their luck was with them - a small boat crewed by a pair of Rodian research assistants was within hailing distance. They seemed surprised — even beyond the permanently-surprised expression natural to Rodians — to see other people on Harax. They were even more surprised to learn that they had survived so many weeks in the open. Apparently that was not normal.

The Harax Biological Research Station was small, with a diversely non-human staff of no more than a dozen.The scientists worked for the Chiss University allied to the House of Inrokini. As far as Hux was aware, House Inrokini was vaguely sympathetic to the First Order. He recalled they’d even collaborated on some terraforming research together. On the other hand, the Chiss were famously xenophobic, which made the heterogenous crew of their Research Station hard to explain. Hux wondered how accurate his information really was. At any rate, the crew of the Research Station did not react to the sight of Hux’s uniform (what was left of it) and seemed uninterested in who they were or their reason for arriving on Harax. They offered him the use of their comms unit to contact the First Order. Which Hux did, as soon as he’d enjoyed a meal and a hot shower, courtesy of their hosts.

“We are alive and well, Phasma, as you can see,” he told the image on the holoscreen. After so many weeks in the wild, the sight of Phasma’s gleaming uniform and perfectly groomed features came as a shock. “Anything to report?”

“Your crew has been a credit to our training. So, nothing to report.”

“Just what I would expect, Phasma.” He gave her a smile of genuine relief, and he fancied he could see her mentally preening herself at the praise. Well, she deserved it, if she’d kept things running smoothly since his unexpected disappearance.

“I’ll send a shuttle for you right away. Uh — Snoke has been asking where you are.”

“We’ll continue our mission there, then, if you can continue to command the Finalizer until I return.”

“Oh, and also some lawyer person from the Hutt family keeps trying to contact you.”

“We’ve been out of contact with any news of the Galaxy since we left, so let’s discuss any developments outside of the Finalizer once we’re back on a First Order ship.” He gave her the coordinates and went out of the comms room in search of the others.

He found Chaali first. He’d gravitated towards one of the labs and was grilling a pair of biologists who were dissecting a grackle. They seemed charmed by his questions. The grackle, pinned across a gigantic board tilted over a drain, was alarming even when dead. Chaali was playing with one of the claws. Catching sight of Hux, he used the claw to gesture to a big flask of ruby-coloured liquid.

“Look! They extract the venom. They can distill medicinal enzymes out of it. They think they might be able to cure Knowt’s Disease with it!”

“Is he bothering you?” Hux asked the biologists.

“No, seriously no. We’re that glad to have somebody new to talk to,” said one, a Chiss woman whose skin was burnt to indigo leather from working under Harax’s sun. Hux found the contrast with her red eyes disturbing. She was up to her elbow-length gloves in grackle guts, which was not pleasant either. Hux looked away, back to Chaali.

“Where’s Ren? I need to talk to him.”

“Washing his hair. He said he’d be aaaaAAAAages.”

“That I can believe. You next, though.”

“What? NO!”

“What - yes!” said Hux firmly. “Your hair is so filthy it’s almost grey.” Catching sight of Chaali’s mutinous look, he added, “Kylo Ren washes his hair. Phasma washes her hair. I’m sure the Knights of Ren have clean hair. Go wash your hair.”

Looking stricken, Chaali rushed out. One of the biologists yelled after him, “There’s another shower off the main kitchen. Don’t use the bath, we’re keeping a Natch in it!”

* *

The rest of their stay on Harax passed quickly. Hux borrowed a tablet and wrote a report for his superiors, but there wasn’t much to say, beyond recommending that the First Order keep an eye on the research facility in case they did discover a cure for Knowt’s Disease. Perhaps an offer of financial assistance could be made, in return for a share of the results. Knowt’s Disease was rare, but nearly impossible to control once it caught hold in a crowded environment such as a starship. It was difficult to foresee how the Chiss neutrality would respond to an offer, but worth trying, Hux wrote.

That done, Hux spent the following days idling on one of the loungers on the research station’s heavily netted front porch, watching the parade of homicidal wildlife outside. Volt sharks frolicked in the waters of the inlet, leaping high out of the water and sending arcs of electricity towards each other. It was their mating season, explained one of the Rodian scientists, pausing to watch with Hux for a few minutes. Hux discouraged the conversation, being all too aware of the man’s characteristic reptilian smell. Rodians had no business being marine biologists. The First Order knew they were too violent to play any meaningful part in Galactic culture outside of the criminal underworld.

Mostly, however, the scientists ignored Hux. They had little interest in anything that was not heavily be-clawed and venomous. Hux was happy to be left alone. He didn’t like talking to non-humans. If the famous Chiss neutrality still allowed this kind of diversity, he wasn’t in favour of it.

Chaali followed the survey teams out on their fieldwork. They seemed glad of the company. Hux supposed that their work required a vast appetite for memorising mountains of data. Certainly they didn’t seem to mind listening to Chaali drone on about classes and phyla. Chaali took to drawing colourful taxonomic trees and joining the scientists in their dinnertime arguments about the classification of Harax’s creatures.

Hux began to think it would be better to leave Chaali on Harax when they left. He hadn’t been invited on the journey in the first place, and Hux guessed that nothing good would come of him meeting Snoke. Even if they left him on the ship, Snoke might sense Chaali’s presence, in that uncanny way he had of knowing things. He’d ask to see him. It’d be much better if Hux could say they’d left him on Harax, where he was getting an education. They could pick him up on the way back to the Finalizer.

Though what would Chaali learn, spending weeks alone among this mongrel crew of Chiss and Rodians and Sullustans? He was already far too comfortable around aliens for Hux’s liking.

Ren skulked in his room or went out alone. He spent hours exploring around the station, honing his survival skills or practicing his lightsaber drill, out of sight of the scientists.

“Matching your wits against the local wildlife?” asked Hux, watching him return one day with holes in his shirt.

“We were attacked by a giant slug!” said Chaali, popping up behind him.

“Slugs. Exactly,” said Hux. Ren snorted angrily.

“It had caustic spit,” said Chaali.

Chaali hadn’t lost interest in Ren, despite all the other temptations available to him on the Harax Biological Research Station. In fact, spying on Ren seemed like a natural extension of the time he spent with the scientists stalking Harax’s repulsive creatures. He’d watch Ren’s door until he came out, and sneak after him, holding his favourite stick, ready to copy his lightsaber drills. Ren, for his part, had tired of Chaali, and would yell at him to go away.

One afternoon Hux could hear them arguing from his spot on the porch.

“But I want to learn how to…”

“You can’t. You’re never going to be a Knight of Ren!”

“Why not? I can learn…”

“Because you don’t have the Force!” Ren shouted, sweeping his arm around angrily. A skein of sand lifted off the beach to follow his gesture.

“How do you know? Chaali shouted back.

“It’s what I do! If you had the Force, I’d know it.”

“I bet I do! It just hasn’t come out yet. My mum said I was a late developer…” Chaali said desperately.

“It won’t. You’d hate being a Knight, anyway. They have to follow orders all the time, and you’re useless at doing what you’re told.”

Chaali whirled around and threw his stick like a spear. Ren caught it one-handed and threw it further away. Chaali ran after the stick, picked it up, and kept running. Hux watched after him, wondering if he should follow, but saw that Chaali’s course along the beach would take him past the station’s dock. The marine biologists were just then arriving with their latest specimens, and Chaali would not be able to run past without taking a look. They’d keep an eye on him.

Ren stomped up to Hux and called through the insect netting. “Keep him out of my way, would you? Every time I go out to practice my forms, he starts crashing around after me with his stupid stick. Half the time I have to stop what I’m doing to rescue him from some natural disaster. I’m not here to babysit the little fool.”

“Why don’t you use your famous Force mind powers to keep him away?” asked Hux.

Ren looked down, chewing his lip. Something about the question made him uncomfortable, Hux guessed.

“It only works on…weak-minded people.”

“You just called him a fool. But apparently he’s not enough of a fool to fall for your mind tricks. So what is he?” asked Hux, genuinely interested.

“You wouldn’t understand,” said Ren, his standard reply when he didn’t want to answer. He bounded angrily up the steps, shoved his way through the biohazard portal, and stomped indoors past Hux.

But Hux understood very well. Chaali might lack all practical sense, but his will was as solid as a steel brick.

The next day Chaali came back to the station crying and holding the two broken ends of his stick. Ren was right behind him, a thundercloud on his brows.

“Go play in one of the labs,” said Hux hastily.

“He hit me!”

“You’re lucky that’s all I did. I told you not to touch my things!” snarled Ren. His eyes looked dangerous.

“Chaali, did you….?” began Hux.

Chaali stamped his feet angrily and roared tearfully, “Why are you on his side?” before running inside.

“I’m not….” started Hux, but Chaali was out of earshot already. They could hear him pounding down one of the corridors inside the station.

“Let’s leave him here when the shuttle comes to pick us up,” said Ren.

Even though Hux had been thinking the same thing, Ren’s attitude annoyed him.

“Why are you so hostile towards him, anyway? It’s clear he admires you. He just wants a bit of attention. Would it kill you to be nice to him once in a while?”

“I’m just saying it for his own good. Snoke’s going to hate him, you know that! Whatever he’s looking for, an heir to some future throne, Chaali isn’t it.”

“There’s nothing wrong with him!” said Hux, feeling his face going red. Ren got that smug look he always had when he’d managed to rile Hux. Hux took a deep breath and leaned back in his chair, faking a control he didn’t feel. “Chaali is coming with us,” he said firmly.

Ren turned on his heel and started to flounce away, but changed his mind and wheeled back to face Hux. Now he was chewing his lip in the way he did when he was stirred up. From what Hux could tell, Ren was having one of his fits of feeling twenty things at once. Hux leaned back, cooler now, waiting to see which thought would win the race to get out of Ren’s mouth.

When Ren spoke, it surprised him. He spoke low, almost reluctantly. “I don’t hate Chaali. It’s for his own good. Look at him, he’s perfectly happy here. The people here like him.”

‘“People’? They’re aliens!” said Hux. He looked past Ren, over the low forested hills of the opposite shore. He could see a streak of light against the noonday sky. The shuttle, here already.

“He’s my son, Ren. I’m not leaving him behind.”

 


	9. Too Much Light

The First Order shuttle that came to collect them was a disappointment, and not just to Chaali. Hux had had less frightening take-offs in battle. Even the Renovator’s crash-landing had been better than this. The engine ran loose and janky, and it sounded like the hull would barely hold together long enough to reach hyperspace.

The shuttle smelled bad too — a mixture of chemical and organic smells — and everything in it looked dingy and tired. The upholstery in the cockpit was ripped and small scratches scored the floor and walls.

“Is this the 39c with the Jaemus thrusters?” asked Chaali. Everyone ignored him, especially the pilot.

“Sorry sir, it lists to port sometimes. And then starboard. It’s difficult to predict,” said the pilot, when she could spare them a moment of her attention. Hux hung onto his seat and watched the planet’s surface shrink and wobble below them.

Chaali had learned how to scream like a Haraxitor, one of Harax’s winged predators. He did it as the ship shuddered into warp, and wouldn’t stop until Hux yelled at him.

“How long until we get to Snoke’s?” asked Ren.

“About a week,” said the pilot.

“What is _wrong_ with this ship!” asked Hux, as the cabin settled into a relentless and uncomfortable vibration.

“Lots of things,” said the pilot. She shot him a quick look, weighing something up. “Permission to speak freely sir?”

“Yes,” said Hux.

“This is our _best_ shuttle. We’ve been asking for more funds from Central Command for five years now. But we never get what we need to fix things up properly. Four of our attack ships and two shuttles are in the dock awaiting parts, and we’ll probably have to cut back on our operations even further if we’re to buy them. Central Command keeps asking us to send out our patrols further and more frequently, but we haven’t the capacity.”

“Where are you based?” he asked.

“OR 5.”

One of the Outer Rim outposts. Hux had seen the memos from their command. He’d thought they were exaggerating. There would have to be an investigation, he decided. He’d bring it up with Snoke.

Another shriek from Chaali, and a blurred shape whizzed past Hux’s ears. Ren started flailing his arms frantically. There was something caught in his hair, a spiky winged thing about the size of a small hand. Chaali lunged at it, grabbing a handful of Ren’s hair in the process.

“Oh no! Come back!” he howled.

Ren shoved him across the cabin. The creature broke free of Ren’s hair and joined its mate, which was still buzzing Hux’s head. The two of them darted through a broken ventilator cover near the ceiling.

Chaali jumped on the back of the pilot’s chair and pressed his nose to the ventilation duct above their heads. He was crying. “Where’s the tool kit! I’ve got to get them out! If they fly into the air processors they’ll die!”

“So will we,” said the pilot, with the air of one who is hanging onto sanity by one thread. Hux scooped Chaali off her seat before she could lose that thread. He doubted anyone else could fly this particular wreckage of a ship, Force or no Force.

“What in the seven Corellian hells were those?” snarled Ren, backing into a corner and looking at them all with wild eyes.

“Scritchlings. The climbed into my pocket and fell asleep. I thought they’d be fun.…”

Ren left the cabin in a fury, kicking the door with such force that it flew open, hit the wall and rebounded into his face. He screamed with rage.

Chaali started to giggle at the sight of Ren holding his nose. Hux stuffed his sleeve into Chaali’s mouth to stop him, and Chaali bit him. Now Hux was swearing too.

It was going to be a long week.

  
* * *

Snoke roused himself from vague dreams of proliferating life. Some sort of unpleasant fungus spreading between the stars, clogging the light. There was something disturbingly attractive about it too, but he woke up before he could decide what to do about it. The finely-tuned senses that monitored his environment never truly slept, and they told him now that he had visitors.

Hux and Kylo Ren, finally here. It was odd how even after such a long life, a month’s delay could sometimes really grate on him, while at other times entire decades could pass unremarked. Still, here they were now.

He savoured their presence, which he could feel through the thick walls that separated him from them. Hux was cold and focused. Snoke pictured him as a nuclear pile, a blue deadly fire hidden under its shielding. Kylo Ren was the opposite: hot, like lava, barely under control. But his contact with the First Order was hardening him now; one day his soul would be solid, brittle, ripe for breaking.

In the meantime, the blended heat Snoke sensed from them was delicious. It reminded him of his pre-sentient days, when he’d eaten his litter-mates and fared forth into the world to sink his teeth into whatever hot, bloody life he could find. Even though his awareness of them was not at all physical, it was comparable enough to wake memories that made his mouth water.

They were fresh and bright, unlike the people who tended his domain.

Here was one of them now. A guard, knocking on the door to the room where Snoke slept enfolded in a silky black nest like a dark rose. Snoke commanded the door to open, revealing a grey-armoured man in a slit-faced helmet, standing painfully straight. Snoke could sense how the person inside the rigid posture was wilting. Too long in Snoke’s presence made sentient beings fade. He kept his best operatives far from him for that reason.

“A First Order shuttle has arrived conveying General Hux and Kylo Ren,” said the man, over-enunciating to make up for the muffling effect of his helmet.

“Yes, I know. Conduct them to the throne room. I will receive them there.”

A small creature emerged from under the bed, dragging a robe in its teeth. Snoke bent down to inspect it. Only slightly chewed. He pulled it on over his head. The creature capered on spindly legs, relieved it had guessed Snoke’s needs correctly. He swept one long foot towards it and it scuttled back under the bed, where it was greeted with a chorus of cheeps. He scrubbed his teeth with the corner of a sheet, stretched, and walked out of the room towards his throne. The corridors were almost empty. He needed few guards. If anyone came looking for Snoke, he’d know about it long before his human staff would. Or so he thought.

* * *

Most of the things Snoke wanted to discuss with General Hux and Kylo Ren had resolved themselves or been dealt with while they were fighting their way through the wilds of Harax. The disposition of troops, the balance of threats and diplomacy: these things were not rocket science, at least not to Snoke. Patterns tended to repeat themselves, in politics as in all else.

Things generally did resolve themselves, if one was prepared to wait and observe. Snoke used to study history to learn of great deeds and bold decisions. Nowadays he preferred the quiet satisfaction of discovering others whom he suspected of ruling by doing the absolute minimum. It wasn’t easy to detect them in the histories, and he always felt a glow of recognition when he found one.

Therefore he listened to Hux and Ren with only half his attention as they wittered on about the First Order. It was close to midday, and bars of sunlight lanced down from above, warming the throne where Snoke sat. His eyes tracked the slow dance of dust motes caught in the beams.

“I need a replacement for the Renovator,” said Kylo earnestly. Hux’s head snapped around to look at Ren, and he actually stamped his foot.

“That’s another thing!” Hux said heatedly. “Our extended outposts have been clamouring for more support for years. They claim they need far more money to maintain any kind of a working fleet, and now I’ve seen the evidence with my own eyes. The shuttle that brought us here was a disgrace, and apparently that was their _best_ craft!”

“So they told us. They could be lying,” said Kylo. _“I_ need a ship that inspires the sort of respect that…”

Hux’s top lip was curled in outrage. He opened his mouth to speak.

_“Were_ they lying?” interrupted Snoke, spotting the aura of falsehood hanging over Kylo’s head. Hux’s poisonous glare was another giveaway. “I would expect you to use the Force to test their claims as a matter of course,” Snoke continued.

“No,” Kylo muttered, blushing. Snoke marvelled at Kylo’s ability to blunder into his own traps. Humans generally matured faster than this, he thought. There was an uncomfortable silence. Uncomfortable for them, anyway. Snoke was perfectly happy.

“What about this First Order lawyer that’s chasing Hux, then?” said Kylo, in an attempt to change the subject.

“One of your knights cut him down before we could find out. Get them under control, Kylo. I don’t need to tell you that lawyer could have been useful to us.”

“Which knight?” asked Kylo, his voice grating as though he were still wearing his helmet.

“Dalto.”

“I’ll….speak to him.”

“Not likely. I made him eat the corpse, and it was too much for him.”

Neither Hux nor Kylo moved for a beat, and Snoke smiled.

“I’M JOKING!” he roared. They both laughed immediately, Kylo’s “Hyuk, hyuk, hyuk,” hanging on and echoing after Hux had composed himself.

“Go talk to Dalto, Kylo. You can unchain him yourself. He’s in the eastern block cells. I think he’s had long enough to meditate on his failings.”

“Still not much of a Force user then, I take it?” said Kylo.

“No. Or he’d have got loose by now. I’d actually welcome him making a bit more of an effort in that direction,” said Snoke.

Kylo bowed his agreement. Snoke looked over at Hux.

“The lawyer had something to do with your son, apparently. Since we have no interest in New Republic laws, I don’t see that we have to take any action.”

Hux nodded and said nothing.

“Dismissed.”

* * *

The tall doors closed behind General Hux and Kylo Ren with a slam that echoed off the black stones of the empty chamber. Snoke sat for a moment in thought, then pulled a datapad out of the arm of his throne. He made a couple of quick notes.

To be honest, he didn’t much care what the First Order did. Managing them was little more than a hobby. When they’d stumbled across him in their exploration of the Unknown Regions a human generation ago, he’d found it convenient to enfold their political ambitions into his own plans. It kept the rest of the Galaxy out of his way.

He’d had similar partnerships in the past, over the course of his long life. This present arrangement was more interesting than usual. Humans were the perfect social animal for Snoke’s purposes: neither mindlessly obedient nor hopelessly individualistic. It pleased him that the First Order tried so hard to impose some kind of group-think on a species that was not naturally a hive mind. Hive minds were excellent servants, capable of remarkable success until they fell into some error of judgement or failure of will. Then they were worse than useless. The Galaxy’s more individualistic races often achieved startling things, but keeping their loyalty became tiresome, Snoke found.

Kylo had interesting potential, though, and Snoke had plans for him. Nothing the First Order need know about.

A noise pulled Snoke out of his reverie. The door to the throne room opened again, not very far. A small humanoid shape was outlined in a shaft of light before the doors shut again. Snoke looked at the person who had entered. The child. Just as he’d seen him through Hux’s holopad.

How had Chaali got there? Snoke had sensed the arrival of Hux and Ren, and the crew of the shuttle. He didn’t even need to reach out to sense the crew still on board their ship, and their commanders’ hurried progress back through the Palace towards them. So how could this child be here, undetected and unannounced?

Snoke studied him. Was there a potential Crown Prince under those ragged clothes? The boy seemed athletic, built for action. He might indeed grow into a suitable figurehead for the First Order. Handsome and strong. People would follow that, as though bewitched by their own fairytales.

But there was something off about him. He was not a small version of Hux. That pale, wild hair that had flared like a corona as he stood in the doorway. The bare feet. He’d been with the First Order for half a standard year, but Snoke sensed none of the formality, the conformity he would have expected.

Chaali stood poised at the doorway, utterly still. Like an animal, with his long hair and watchful eyes. That alert pose waking Snoke’s hunting instincts with memories of the days when anything Chaali’s size was fair game. A tasty morsel indeed.

Snoke knew he looked impressive, especially now. So close to noon, the chamber’s single source of light, a skylight, allowed the sun to pour down on him and his gleaming black throne. The usually-dark room was ablaze with rainbows of light that danced off the shining black surfaces. A long tongue of black marble ran from the doors to just short of his feet, inviting his subjects to approach and abase themselves before him. Yet Chaali did not look impressed. His eyes took in Snoke and everything else in the room with equal interest.

“How did you get in?” Snoke said quietly, not to startle the boy. Though the boy, wary as he was, seemed to take Snoke’s appearance in his stride. Making him a natural part of the furniture of the room, sparse as it was.

“Your guards. Their helmets are badly designed,” said Chaali.

“Oh? Pray do tell me more,” said Snoke, almost amused. Chaali seemed not to hear the irony in his voice.

“If they look up, they can’t see things near the ground because their field of view is very restricted,” Chaali said, sounding like a walking dictionary. He was right though: the corridors outside the throne room consisted of short zig-zags with no long views. The guards’ helmets, with their slit visors, were intimidating. But they weren’t practical: if the guards looked up, they wouldn’t see anything that was nearby — as anything in those short corridors must be — and close to the ground.

“And why would they look up?” said Snoke.

“They were surprised to see scritchlings flying around the ceiling,” said Chaali.

“Scritchlings?”

“I thought they were asleep in my pocket,” said Chaali. He was perhaps the worst liar Snoke had ever met. He looked like an innocent expression was something he was performing after studying it in a diagram, and cursorily at that.

“Do General Hux and Kylo Ren know you’re here?”

“No. The doors open outwards, so I was behind them when they came through,” said Chaali. “I got a bit squashed.”

“Yes, well they always seem to leave in a hurry,” said Snoke, laughing inwardly.

“I love this place!” Chaali shouted suddenly, and jumped off the platform and into the curved tiers of stone benches surrounding the throne. He ran faster and faster, around and around, leaping from bench to bench with his arms outstretched like wings. He shrieked, and the noise echoed from the hard surfaces in a way that obviously delighted him, because he repeated it again and again.

Snoke was not used to being ignored. Nor was he used to small children invading his temple, his throne room. Abruptly he found this pale blur of noise completely unsupportable.

“STOP!” he roared. Chaali jittered to a halt and jumped down the benches from the top tier to the dais in front of Snoke.

“Did I give you a headache? People say I do. I’m sorry.” He looked up at Snoke and sniffed, wrinkling his whole face. _“Ewwww!_ I thought if you were on the Dark Side you had to bathe a lot….”

It took Snoke a moment to process the insult, it was so unexpected. When he did, he stood up in a fury. This… _offspring_ of General Hux was an abomination. A horrible mistake. An insulting, half-wild fool that did not belong in First Order society. Where was the respect? Where was the _fear?_ If this boy was ever granted power, he’d make them all a laughing stock!

Chaali seemed to realise he’d overstepped some boundary (did he even have a concept of boundaries? Snoke wondered). He scuttled back towards the doorway.

“You are _unacceptable!_ I see NO place for you in the First Order!” Snoke roared, taking a step towards Chaali.

“What about the Knights of Ren?”

“I’d let them kill you, only I want to do it myself!”

Chaali battered at the doors in vain. Snoke had locked them from the control panel on his armrest. Now he strode towards Chaali, and Chaali darted away to the tiered seating, leaping from bench to bench with desperate feet. Snoke felt his shoulderblades itch. Once he’d had hackles there, and they would raise up at such a sight. Something to chase.

It might be fun to chase him, but it would be much easier to just reach out with his mind and put a _stop_ to him. If he could just get a hold on that mind. He’d blast him and serve him up to Hux as a braindead lump of still-breathing meat. Let him feel the shame of fathering _that!_

“This is a failure, General,” he’d say. “This isn’t what I require. Try harder.”

He frowned, concentrating. When he was young it was easy to flick from one frequency to another, keeping his attention on everything in the net of life that surrounded him. Later his abilities grew more refined, so he could focus on one species and hook into it with all his power. But it had become harder to switch his focus quickly to different lifeforms. He’d been observing humans almost exclusively for years. It took effort now to tune into something different.

Because Chaali _was_ different. He was a human, but one with a badly out-of-tune mind. Elusive, unfamiliar, and on a different frequency. No wonder Snoke hadn’t sensed him. He took a deep breath and tried again to synchronise with Chaali as he stalked around the room after him.

Chaali’s heartbeat, his breathing, his flying feet, his flailing arms, his terror. Snoke locked into them, felt them as his own. He nearly had him now…

Suddenly he cracked into Chaali’s mind. His own body staggered.

The light! How could this black throne room be so intolerably bright? And the noise, everything so much too loud - the air processors, the sound of their feet slapping on the marble, the whiplash echoes, the rush of blood in his ears, his heart a cataclysmic drum. The dizziness and itch of the air itself, the wind of their passage through it burning his skin.

Thoughts, incredibly fast and out of control, like bludgeons, each triggering a fresh explosion of feeling, each as impossible to hold as a handful of ocean. Nothing synchronised, nothing ordered, and there was nowhere to shelter from the vastness of ants and the cool judgement of stars. Large and small, far and near, all equally freighted with meanings, yet all equally insignificant. Maybe somewhere there was order - some stable lattice of numbers, of things counted and understood. But if Chaali had a way to grasp it all, Snoke did not.

Dimly he felt himself reeling, losing his balance. He was back in his own body for an instant, long enough to see the ceiling wheel past his face as he fell. Light and pain flared from the back of his skull, and then darkness.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is not the end, no. We're not done yet.


	10. Back to the Finalizer

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hux, Kylo and Chaali return to the Finalizer, but life isn't quite the same.
> 
>  
> 
> * * *

The walk back to the shuttle seemed interminable. The architecture of Snoke’s palace was disturbing in ways that were hard to define — though Hux certainly tried. Was it the cramped corridors opening into senseless spaces, used for nothing? The way windows looked straight out onto walls? The place seemed to be designed by somebody who thought rooms and corridors were a good thing for a palace to have, but didn’t know what they were for. Everything was signposted, as though the palace’s own inhabitants stood a chance of getting lost otherwise. Occasional guards stood at random points, apparently guarding nothing. They seemed strangely out of breath, as if they had been rushing around madly just a moment before.

Listing all the details that seemed off didn’t help, Hux found. The place still got under his skin.

Ren seemed determined to prove he could walk faster than Hux. He stormed through the tight corridors outside the throne room, cloak flaring, feet kicking out angrily as he rounded every corner. Hux didn’t want to be left trailing behind him, but the only alternative was to make an undignified hop-skip to keep up with him. Very well, let him go ahead. Hux didn’t want to see his petulant face anyway.

“Meet me back at the shuttle when you’ve finished dealing with that knight of yours, Dallas or whatever he calls himself,” said Hux. Ren’s retreating back gave no answer, and he soon disappeared out of sight around the next corner.

A minute later Hux heard footsteps coming towards him at a run. They sounded like Ren’s heavy feet, in those black boots that had miraculously survived everything Harax could throw at them. A moment later Ren burst around the nearest corner, breathing hard.

“It’s Chaali. He’s in danger!” said Ren.

“Danger? Where? Didn’t he stay back in the shuttle?” asked Hux, and bit his tongue. Of course he hadn’t.

“Snoke. He’s with Snoke!” said Ren, running past Hux, back the way they’d come. A thread of ice shot down Hux’s spine, and he turned to run after Ren. They pounded back towards the throne room together. Just outside the throne room they caught up with a guard who was marching briskly to resume his station in front of the doors. He was the first one to react to Hux and Ren at all. He turned and moved to block their way.

“Let us in!” said Ren. “We need talk to the Supreme Leader.”

“The Supreme Leader has probably gone,” said the guard.

“Has he gone or not?” said Hux, moving in threateningly. His hand was on his holster.

“I don’t know. He has his own entrance to the throne room. But your meeting is over, and I have not received word that you are summoned here again.” He drew his weapon.

Ren leaned in towards the guard, looming over him and resting one hand on the wall by his ear. He said nothing for a while, and the man stood as if paralysed. Hux kept very still. Ren slowly lifted his other hand as though to touch the guard’s face, but did not, quite.

“We were summoned. You will open the door. The Supreme Leader requires our presence,” said Ren softly. Then he stepped back. The man seemed to regain the power of movement.

“Pass,” he said thickly.

Ren nodded slowly, not breaking his gaze on the guard. “It’s been a day like any other,” he suggested. The guard frowned slightly.

“Apart from the scritchlings….” he said slowly, as though talking in his sleep.

Ren twitched, but kept his voice very calm. “Yes. Apart from the scritchlings. There is some perfectly harmless explanation for those. And now goodbye. You may continue to guard this door in the ordinary way, as it is an ordinary day.”

Bowing, the guard keyed open the doors. Hux surged forward past Ren, who was standing as if he, now, had lost the power to move. “What?” whispered Ren.

The room seemed empty of anything but light, which glanced everywhere off the slick black stones.

“Are you sure he was here?” Hux said, turning back. Ren was frowning.

“I can’t feel either of them. I should be able to, but I can’t. They were here a moment ago, I’m sure of it!”

Some instinct made them both tip-toe into the throne room. It seemed empty. Hux walked a little further forward, following the first tier of seats. There! The sun caught on something bright, on the floor behind the throne. A spill of blonde hair. Hux ran towards it.

There was Chaali, lying as if asleep in a puddle of sunlight. Limbs sprawled carelessly anyhow. His eyes were shut, blue-shadowed as though very, very tired. Hux’s heart seemed to jump into his throat. He stooped to pick Chaali up, holding him tight. Limp and still warm. Hux patted his cheeks, hard. No response. But there was breath, light as mothwings against Hux’s neck.

“What did he _do_ to him?” Hux whispered. He threw a quick look around him and a feeling of horror overcame him. Ren was staring with the same shock on his face as Hux felt. But he wasn’t staring at Chaali. There was something else poking out from behind one of the other benches. A long grey foot. Hux gulped.

“What did he _do_ to him?” Ren said, echoing Hux. Hux craned forward over the lowest tier of benches. Snoke was sprawled on his back. With his grey skin and horrible scars, he looked not just dead, but long-dead. Hux repressed a shudder.

“He’s still alive,” muttered Kylo, and bent down to him.

They was not meant to be here, thought Hux in terror. There would be some terrible punishment if they were caught. Hux leaned in close to Ren and whispered, “Nobody must ever know we were here.” He settled Chaali on his shoulder and staggered towards the door. Ren gave him a disgusted look and did not follow.

“What?” hissed Hux.

“He’s our master! He’s hurt!”

Hux hissed through his teeth with frustration. They couldn’t hang around here! Snoke was old enough and ugly enough to look after himself, he thought. Ren was in no mood to hear that, though. His hands flicked nervously as though he wanted to slap Snoke awake, but did not dare. Hux rolled his eyes and pointed silently at the guard, whose back they could see silhouetted through the partly-open door.

“I’ll take care of the guard when I leave. Now get lost!” snarled Kylo. It didn’t seem much of a plan, but Hux had no intention of staying around to face questions from Snoke. He would never understand why Ren worshiped that animated corpse so much, but Hux supposed it was all of a piece with his fetish for that disgusting burnt helmet he kept. Leaving those questions aside, Hux pushed the throne-room door fully open and walked past the guard as casually as possible. The guard did not react. Perhaps Ren still had a hold on his mind.

Miraculously, there were no other guards on the way back to the shuttle, and the landing bay was deserted, as usual. The whole place seemed sunk in a noonday stupor. Still, Hux tried to look casual, as though it was perfectly normal to walk up the ship’s ramp holding a child in his arms. There must be security cameras, he thought. But no alarms went off.

“Prime the engines, please. We’re lifting off as soon as Ren returns, and he won’t be long,” said Hux as soon as he got in. “Does anyone in the crew have any medical knowledge?”

The pilot’s eyes widened as she took in the sight of the unconscious boy on Hux’s shoulder. “I’m so sorry! Moraband scourge me, I don’t know how _he_ got out! Is he all right?”

Hux didn’t have time to be as angry as he should have been. “Getting out is what he does,” he muttered.

The pilot opened the back door of the cockpit and yelled into the crew lounge. “Nate! Medical situation!”

Hux carried Chaali through into the ship’s medbay. Nate checked Chaali’s pulse, gave him a stimulant and hooked him up to a drip. He asked Hux what had happened. Hux didn’t know. Nate opened the medical supply cabinets and stared into them blankly as though they might suggest some better treatment. Hux couldn’t help noticing they were mostly empty anyway.

Hux was remotely aware of the engines firing up and the ship making its crabbed ascent. Ren leaned around the door shortly afterwards, a question in his eyes. Hux shrugged. “The medtech doesn’t know what’s wrong with him. He doesn’t think he’s in any danger though. What about Snoke?”

Ren flopped down on the spare bunk opposite Hux. He looked pale, and a sheen of sweat covered his face. Hux guessed he’d been drawing hard on his Force powers, controlling the guards.

“Snoke came around pretty quickly, but he seemed confused. Concussion, I think. He fell and struck his head, but couldn’t remember why. I told him I’d been on my way to sort out Dalto when I felt something was wrong so I came back. He suspected _you_ might have done something, but I said you hadn’t been out of my sight for more than a minute.”

“Me? He’s not my favourite being in the Galaxy, but I’m not about to do him in while he’s a halfway competent leader to the First Order,” said Hux, too tired to dissemble.

“Halfway competent? Halfway…..! Snoke will make the Galaxy great again! You’ll see!” said Ren. His hands were shaking. That famous hair-trigger temper again, Hux thought. Ren had improved while he was on Harax, but apparently it wasn’t permanent.

“Thanks for standing up for me, anyhow,” he said, to placate him. “And thanks for keeping Chaali out of it.”

Ren simmered down. “Yes, he didn’t have any memory of meeting Chaali.”

“He couldn’t read your mind and find out anyway?” asked Hux.

Ren looked guilty. “I thought about other things so he wouldn’t notice.” A faint blush coloured his cheeks. “Snoke isn’t used to people being concerned about him. I think he liked being, you know, made a fuss of…” he said with shy pride, as though he’d personally saved Snoke’s life through some brilliant act.

Hux failed to control his reaction. Ren caught it, and glared back at him.

“You all think he’s some sort of monster. You don’t know him! All the history behind him, everything he’s lived through!” said Ren furiously.

Oh stars, Ren and Snoke! thought Hux. He felt absolutely no desire to know any more about that. “I admire Snoke’s ability to unite the First Order under a common vision,” he said carefully. Mollified, Ren sniffed and slumped back onto the medbay pillows.

The lights flickered and the ship made its shuddering way through hyperspace, putting distance between them and Snoke.

No distance would be great enough, Hux thought, if Snoke remembered whatever Chaali did to him.

  
* *

Chaali still hadn’t woken from his coma by the time they returned to the Finalizer. A couple of days later, Kylo knocked on the door of Hux’s rooms. Hux answered the door, looking exhausted.

“Learned to knock, have you?” he asked, but there was no heat in his words. Kylo held up the bottle of Corellian brandy he was holding. Not something one often saw on the Finalizer. Hux said nothing but held the door open for Kylo to enter.

“How is he?” Kylo asked.

“No change,” said Hux. He sounded defeated. Kylo found some glasses and poured them each a measure. He stood by the viewport, since Hux hadn’t invited him to sit down. There was nothing to see except the usual: space.

“Look on the bright side,” Kylo said. “It’s been so peaceful since we got back.”

“For you. Some of us have work to catch up on.”

Ah yes. The superweapon, thought Kylo. It was all anybody could talk about lately.

“Heard anything from the Supreme Leader recently?” asked Hux. Which Kylo understood as code for, “Has Snoke said anything about Chaali?”

“We had a holoconference yesterday. The Supreme Leader still seems to be his normal self.” As he had been since they left him. Kylo knew that to Hux, it seemed like a blade hung over their heads at all times. If Snoke remembered confronting Chaali, and realised that they’d concealed the memory from him…

They both felt instinctively how terrible Snoke’s rage would be if he ever realised that a child had brought him down, even for a few minutes. Chaali’s life depended on Kylo not thinking about him whenever Snoke contacted him.

Luckily, Snoke seemed only mildly puzzled about why he’d fallen over. Marble floors were slippery. Everyone knew that. And Snoke was old. (That thought always gave Kylo a sick, shivery feeling. Even Snoke could die, and then Kylo would be what? Left without a mentor and protector? Or transformed into a master himself, wielder of the greatest power in the Galaxy? He wasn’t ready to find out yet.) (But sometimes he wanted to.)

They both worried that Snoke secretly knew everything, and would snatch Chaali away when they least expected it. He could be biding his time, letting Hux suffer the torment of uncertainty, before extracting some terrible revenge.

Kylo turned away from the window and poured Hux another drink. Hux downed it in silence, held out his glass for another.

Hux’s comms unit chimed. Ren looked over at it reflexively, and did a double-take when he recognised the insignia on the message. One that he’d never expected to see again: the New Republic’s Department of Justice.

“Hux! Why are the New Republic’s courts contacting you?”

Hux made a furious gesture and jumped to his feet, striding over to look. He tabbed the message to text-only so Kylo wouldn’t hear it. He gave a wordless snarl once he’d finished reading.

“What?” said Kylo.

Hux looked white with fury. “This again! They keep saying I haven’t formally adopted Chaali under New Republic law!”

“Who cares? Nobody else wants him. His mother’s to Moraband-and-gone over in the next Galaxy or something, isn’t she?”

“Oh, you didn’t hear,” Hux snarled. “She got back early. The farjumper ship failed, or something. Anyway, she’s back and she wants to drag Chaali back into her chaotic mess of a life again!”

“What, so she sends _lawyers_ after you? Since when is she even part of the New Republic?”

“She probably randomly met a Star Court judge and slept with him. That’s how things work in her world.”

There was a moment’s silence while they both remembered Julilla in her skin-tight sheath dress of gnazian silk, a magnet to every eye in the banquet rooms of the First Order.

Kylo’s thoughts were interrupted by something that pinged on his Force senses. A familiar presence. He took Hux’s glass out of his hand and put it on the table. “Medbay, now,” he said.

“What, is Chaali in danger?”

“No! He’s _awake!”_

* *

Kylo was right. As they made their way to the medbay, they met a couple of orderlies running to tell Hux the good news. For once Hux seemed to have no trouble keeping up with Kylo’s long strides.

Chaali’s room was dimly lit but they could see his eyes reflecting what light there was as he looked around the room, confused. He raised his head weakly off the pillow as they entered.

“Mum?” he asked.

Kylo was glad he couldn’t see Hux’s face just then.

Really it was extraordinary, when you thought about it, how Chaali had never shown any signs of missing his mother before. Kylo had thought it was part of Chaali’s singular nature, that he would simply adapt to his surroundings without reference to anyone else. During Chaali’s coma, Kylo had had time to wonder what it was he missed about the little pest. It was Chaali’s unbreakable sense of self, he decided. If it made him a supremely annoying child, it was also admirable.

Hux on the other hand seemed diminished. Kylo had always envied the effortless way Hux fitted into the First Order. He’d spent his life doing what everyone expected of him, and the command strata of the Finalizer was his natural habitat. Nothing he’d ever chosen, it simply fit him perfectly.

But recently, Hux had wavered. Kylo sensed it. The long nights he spent by Chaali’s bed, waiting for him to wake, had shaken something in him. Kylo knew he wondered who or what they served, when they obeyed Snoke.

Hux didn’t lack ambition. Anything but that! But the cool efficiency of Hux’s ambition had felt repellent to Kylo. Where was the passion? he wondered. The recklessness? You should be able to tear your own heart out for a cause, if you truly believed in it, as Kylo did. As he had done, in fact. Commitment should be proved through sacrifice, Kylo believed, and he’d never seen Hux sacrifice anything.

Until now.

On their journey back to the Finalizer, Kylo had seen Hux sit day after day by Chaali’s bed. Once Kylo caught him brushing Chaali’s hair out so it spread over the pillow, a shining fall of living gold. The expression on Hux’s face was unbearable, and Kylo was sorry he’d seen it. Sorrier still when Hux noticed he was there, and his face closed over his grief.

“The sleeping beauty,” Kylo said, trying to lighten the mood. “Imagine how he’d hate that, having his hair brushed, if he was awake.”

Hux laughed shortly, without humour. Kylo had left him watching every tremor of the sleeping boy’s eyelids, hoping for a sign they would open at last.

Now they had.

“Where’s Mum?” said Chaali weakly.

“I’m here. Your father,” said Hux. His voice sounded shaky too.

Chaali stared at him blankly for what seemed a long time, and then sighed. “I remember now.” He craned around Hux slightly to look at Ren. “And you. Are you happy yet?”

Prince of the non-sequitur, as always. Kylo looked at his feet, unable to answer. What had Hux ever done to deserve this boy?

“You’ve been asleep a long time. You’ve been sick,” said Hux, pulling up a chair to sit by Chaali’s head. Chaali started to cry and when Hux put his arm around him, he burrowed into him.

Kylo tiptoed out. Family was the tragic flaw, he thought. It had been for Vader, and now it looked like Hux was heading down the same path.

  
* *  
Over the next few days Hux watched the medtechs run a battery of tests on Chaali.

“How many fingers am I holding up?” asked the neurologist.

“I don’t know, how many have you got?” asked Chaali.

“How many?”

“I don’t want to look.”

“Chaali, answer the man please. He’s trying to help,” said Hux.

“Is this a joke? I know how to count!” said Chaali, outraged. “I haven’t got not-being-able-to-count sickness.”

“Let’s see you walk, then,” said the neurologist, with fake cheer. “See this line on the floor? I want you to walk along it, and it’s a game. You have to place your feet on the line. See if you can do it.”

“I know a better game!” said Chaali. “You have to get all the way around the room without touching the floor!” Before they could stop him, he’d rolled to his feet and jumped from the bed to a chair, and from there swung himself by an overhead railing onto a rolling instrument table. The table shot out into the hall. Chaali’s shrieks echoed down the corridor.

“He appears to be back to normal,” said Hux.

One thing was clear though. Chaali didn’t remember anything that had happened after they arrived on Snoke’s world.

* *

“What are these doing in my bath!” yelled Kylo to the presence he sensed in his room a month later. Chaali peeked out of the towel cupboard, where Kylo saw he’d built himself a nest.

“I knew Father wouldn’t want them in our rooms,” Chaali said winningly. “And you _have_ a bath. We only have a refresher.” Which was true. Kylo demanded all sorts of luxuries nobody else on the Finalizer had. A bath, towels, expensive shampoo.

“Phasma has an entire spare room. You could have put them in there!” Kylo stared at the mass of squirming lavender fur in the bottom of his bath.

“She has done something to her locks,” said Chaali. “I can’t get in.”

Kylo shouted with laughter. “Good for her!” The creatures in the bath tried to burrow under each other, alarmed at the noise. “Where did you get them?” he asked.

“Sergeant Lintower on C Deck,” said Chaali. He climbed out of the towel cupboard, sure now that Kylo was not going to lose his temper. “Aren’t they cute? I call them fuzzbundles.” He leaned over the bath and stroked the little furballs. “Cutey cutey cutey cuuuuuuuute!”

Kylo sighed. “They’re not fuzzbundles. They’re dathomirian war weasels.”

“No they’re not!”

“They are. Lintower is a notable troublemaker, and he’s been busted for running an illegal weasel-fighting ring before now.”

“Look at them though, they’re sweet.” And they were: little puffs of fur with black button eyes framed by heart-shaped white patches.

  
“They’re sweet now. In a couple of weeks they’ll take your fingers off.”

“If they have to fight, I could make them some armour!” Chaali’s eyes shone at the thought.

“I’m calling Lintower now, and he can take them back,” growled Kylo.

Sergeant Lintower arrived shortly afterwards, looking very uncomfortable at having to deal with the head of the Knights of Ren. Kylo wore his mask and stood silently with his arms folded, tapping one foot, and Lintower was absolutely quaking as he herded the war-weasels into a box.

But Chaali must have arrived at some understanding with Lintower afterwards, because people kept seeing things moving around C Deck that shouldn’t be there. Mouse droids unaccountably sprouted legs and ran away, and one ensign swore she’s seen a weasel in tiny Mandalorian plate-mail.

Chaalie seemed to have mostly recovered from his run-in with Snoke. He built his usual contraptions, which sprawled all over Hux’s floor, making him curse when he tripped over them. The troops got used to the clear bell of Chaali’s laugh echoing down the corridors again. But he wasn’t quite the same. He had dreams that woke him, screaming, and there were days when Hux found him listless and feverish, unable to get out of bed. Hux learned to brew a herbal tea for him, sweetened with moof milk, that brought the fever down as much anything else could.

Phasma took Chaali’s drawing of the beach on Harax and used it to design a silk coverlet for his bed. Chaali loved it, snuggling down into it like a grackle in its nest. Hux had to admit it improved his grey little cabin.

The day Hux was to announce the start of the First Order’s most ambitious project, Chaali pulled off one of his most memorable pranks. The stormtroopers had been practicing their drill on the hangar deck for weeks, preparing for an impressive display. All the top brass of the First Order would be there that evening, along with all the powerful families, politicians and financiers loyal to them.

“Please can I come and see?”

“It’s after your bedtime, Chaali. You can come to the dress rehearsal.”

The dress rehearsal was on the morning of the big ceremony. Hux watched proudly from the saluting platform as the ranks moved smoothly into their ordered lines, following the guide marks that had been taped to the deck. Chaali too watched with close attention, simmering with excitement.

A final command, then silence. The troops were saving their white armour, polished to perfection, for the evening’s performance. Even so, just wearing their fatigues, they made a powerful impression: a sea of flawless black. They were motionless, every eye fixed on Hux and the commanding officers. Until there was a muffled “pop!” and one of the troopers at the far end of the deck jumped. Another “pop” and another trooper flinched. And again, faster and faster, until the troopers appeared to be dancing, rank by rank, driven by a sequence of flashes that crackled under their feet.

Chaali had used the guide marks to tape down a string of fireworks that zig-zagged under the entire parade. Nobody had thought to question the small black objects neatly spaced between their feet. Hux turned towards where Chaali had been by his side, not a moment before. No sign of him.

Phasma was even angrier about it than Hux. She’d prepared the troops’ display, and to see them dancing around like marionettes made her wild. She was at Hux’s cabin minutes after he got there himself, looking for Chaali.

“When are you going to discipline that child, General?” she asked.

“When I catch him!” said Hux.

“That malicious little jerk! I’m taking back that blanket I made for him!”

But Chaali had taken it and vanished.

“No longer will we be a people in exile!” roared Hux to the multitude assembled in the hangar deck, later that night. “This grand work will be more than a weapon! It will be more than a symbol of our might and our technological prowess! When it is finished, it will also be our gathering place, our redoubt, and the very ground that we stand on, united against a feeble and disordered Galaxy!”

He could tell he had the audience in the palm of his hand, moved by the force of his voice. Only the people nearest to him knew the real source of his rage, which had nothing to do with his visions of Starkiller Base.

Somewhere on the Finalizer was the worm that was eating away at its precious discipline. A little hidden node of chaos. His own son.

How could he love him so much, when he wanted to thrash him within an inch of his life? The strength of his feelings shook him.

Chaali was not found for days, and in the end it was entirely thanks to Ren’s weird Force powers that he was found at all.

“Chaali’s in danger,” said Ren briefly, pulling Hux out of his bridge duties to tell him. They followed the thread of Chaali’s distress, Ren casting up and down the corridors of the Finalizer like a hunting hound until they found him curled up in the ceiling above the water plant, sweating and locked in a rictus of fever. It took days before he opened his eyes again, and even then he screamed about the darkness, and something cold reaching for him.

And so it went. Chaali would be all energy and charm for days at a time, following his own mysterious inner life. Just when Hux stopped worrying, he’d collapse, sick with something nobody could diagnose.

* * *

A few standard weeks later, Hux was on Tattooine, dozing rigidly through negotiations with the Hutt clan, who controlled hyperspace routes the First Order needed. The terms of access had to be revisited regularly, and it was always tortuous. It didn’t help that the Hutts loved conflict. Even if they were in agreement, they wouldn’t leave the conference table until they’d managed to either disgust or frustrate everyone there. But after three days of wrangling it was done at last, under the same terms as last year.

How pointless, thought Hux, looking at the tired faces around the Hutt’s garish meeting room. The Hutts were doing their squat-bow farewell gestures and puffing their faces with satisfaction. The First Order officials dredged up what civil expressions they could still manage. Hux tuned out the farewell pleasantries until he heard Nagan Hutt call his name.

“And how is the little offspring, General Hux?”

“I beg your pardon?” Hux had to do a mental about-face. He’d been so close to leaving this wretched conference table, and the last thing he expected was a question about Chaali. “My son is fine, thank you. Uh…and your, um offspring? Thriving, I hope?” he asked, hoping that was the correct response.

“Ah, I heard your son had been unwell. Nothing serious I hope?” said Nagan, eyes slitting with mischief.

“No, he’s growing into a fine boy. Excelling at his studies too,’ said Hux, lying reflexively while wondering who on the Finalizer had been gossiping to Nagan.

When Hux arrived back on the Finalizer he made a detour to the learning pods to visit Chaali. There was no sign of him, and the educator in charge gave Hux a blank look. “He went with you to Tattooine, didn’t he?”

“Phasma, how long has Chaali been missing?” roared Hux as he strode into the bridge a few minutes later.

To her credit, she barely flinched. “I thought he was with….ah. He _said_ you were taking him to Tattooine with you.”

Phasma organised the search, but it was Hux who found him. He’d set up camp in one of the Finalizer’s old training shuttles, and was climbing around its innards.

 _See, I do know my son,_ he thought. _Better than anyone._

“What are you doing, Chaali?”

Chaali looked down from where he was wedged half into the ceiling. “Looking at the airflow system.”

“Why?”

“I want to know if scritchlings would survive getting sucked into the filter system. I think that pilot was wrong when she said we would all die if they did. And look, they could get through here….” Chaali poked a vibrospanner at a small opening in a conduit.

“Well, that’s good to know,” said Hux. “Come back to our cabins. I saw a bug collection at the markets on Tattooine and guess what?”

“You bought it for me?” Chaali’s face lit up, and he swung himself down to let Hux catch him. “Does it have the red-horned rockhopper?”

“Huge. Biggest thing in the collection.”

Chaali skipped after Hux, delighted. In the corridors, officers and crew stopped and returned Chaali’s smile. A little bit of their smiles lingered cautiously on Hux as well. Six months ago Hux would have scowled when Chaali capered around him like that. Now….let them think what they liked.

He had reason enough to scowl later when Chaali’s grandmother Messalina appeared on his cabin commlink that evening.

“Hello dear. How’s our little boy?” said the blonde woman in the pale blue flounce dress. She’d had rejuvenation work done, which added to the shiny plasticity of her skin. She looked like some kind of inedible dessert.

“Full of life,” said Hux heartily, wondering why she was calling now. Julilla’s mother had been noticeably absent since before they went to Harax.

Chaali bounded in, saw who it was, and ducked back into his room. He came out holding the bug collection.

“Look Nana! Hux brought these back from Tattooine!” He showed her the bug collection, which was handsomely mounted on a slab of transparisteel. Messalina recoiled slightly.

“Did the Hutts give you anything, sweetie?”

“Who? No,” said Chaali.

“Shame. They’re very important people,” she said.

Chaali gave her a blank look, then started talking. “These red-horned rockhoppers are related to the adult spitgrubs of Jakku, even though the adult forms look so different. Scientists don’t know how they got there or how they adapted to a completely new ecosystem in such a short time. They have lots of theories about them. I’ve got my own theory, though…”

Messalina’s eyes glazed over and her smile became somewhat frozen. She lasted less than three minutes before cutting off Chaali with a tinkling laugh. “I am sure it must be your bedtime, or why don’t you go and find something to eat? I want to talk to your Daddy.” She waved him away and leaned into her imager to smile at Hux. Her teeth were frighteningly perfect.

“He’s _lovely,_ dear! We miss him so! When are you sending him over?” she gushed.

As far as Hux knew, Messalina had never met Chaali. Julilla spent most of her life on the run from her parents. “You’re welcome to come over and spend some time with him on the Finalizer,” he said.

Messalina drew back with a cooing laugh and fiddled with her hair. “Oh no! That wouldn’t do at all.”

“Why not?” asked Hux.

“It would be very awkward. You see, we’re with the New Republic now.”

“What? Why?”

“One does miss civilisation after a while. You know, theatres, fashion. The rest of the Galaxy is so far behind Hosnia Prime, you have no idea.” She did her tinkling laugh again. “We’re creatures of habit, and one finds it difficult to give these things up. What’s the point of having all this money, otherwise? The First Order would have us spend it all on cruisers and the like.”

“Are you behind this lawyer that’s been trying to take Chaali off me?” said Hux.

“Oh no, that must be Julilla! She wants Chaali back so desperately. He’s all she has now.” Messalina clasped her hands together and gave Hux a tragic look.

“What do you mean, ‘all she has now’? Julilla always seems to have plenty going on in her life!”

“Not now, poor thing. You know that experimental ship she was flying had an accident? Foolish girl, she always took such risks. She’ll be in the regeneration tank for months.” Messalina’s voice lowered to a tearful whisper. “Who knows if she’ll ever get her looks back?”

“Really? Have you visited her?”

“No, but she’s called. She wants Chaali back so, so badly.”

“Have you actually seen her in a bacta-tank with your own eyes?”

Messalina drew back, insulted. “Why would she lie about a thing like that? She just wants her boy back.” She lowered her voice again. “I think she needs something to live for.”

“In other words, no, you haven’t seen her. In a bacta tank, or anywhere else,” said Hux flatly.

“Oh, why are you being so _difficult?”_ cried Messalina. “We don’t want this to get unpleasant!”

“Because Chaali’s being well looked after here. He’s getting an education, regular meals, and a leading place in the First Order.”

“Nagan Hutt told me he was in a coma! For months! And before that he was on Harax! That’s hardly being well looked after!”

Julilla’s family claimed membership of the Hutt clan through some bizarre historic marriage pact that allied one of the Galaxy’s richest human families with one of its most powerful criminal gangs. Hux had always thought it was some kind of titular role. It would be a blow to the First Order if Hux annoyed Messalina Do sen-Hutt, and it turned out she actually had real influence with the Hutts.

“He wouldn’t get better medical care anywhere in the Galaxy. And now he’s fine. He enjoyed his adventure, and he’s happy here,” snapped Hux.

“A boy should be with his mother,” said Messalina, with the certainty of somebody who is far too rich to bother entertaining anyone’s opinion but her own.

“Well, she can come and ask for him herself, if she’s so hot on the idea!”

“She’s _far_ too ill for that!” said Messalina, fluttering her hands over her mouth in shock.

“Then she has a good incentive to recover,” said Hux nastily.

“Well, if that’s your last word, I shall just have to speak to the Hutts. I don’t think you’ll find your dealings with them so easy in the future!” She drew her long upper lip down into a haughty expression, stood up and snapped off her imager without saying goodbye. Hux buried his head in his hands.

  


	11. I Am Become Death, Destroyer of Worlds

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hux's son is sick, and there is nobody on the Finalizer who can cure him. Meanwhile, the powerful Do sen-Hutt family are seeking custody.
> 
>    
> * * *

Of course Hux couldn’t avoid them forever. Not with the Do sen-Hutt’s involvement. One moment he was listening to some closing remarks in an arms deal that he’d helped negotiate on Epsi Nadir. The next, an oily functionary had taken him by the arm and ushered him into a small side room on some pretext murmured under the babble of talk. 

The worst thing was that he recognised a lot of himself in the cold, sleek lawyer who confronted him there. But it infuriated him nonetheless. Chaali should be left out of this kind of bloodless campaigning. 

“Under New Republic law, you no longer have any rights to him,” said the lawyer.

“I need hardly point out that I’m not a New Republic citizen.”

“Then you are not even afforded the protections due to a father within our legislature,” said the lawyer with quiet satisfaction. Hux had the feeling the man had any number of loopholes at his disposal; it was simply a matter of ticking them all off.

“What protections?” he asked anyway.

“Had you attended your trial, you might have found out,” said the lawyer smugly, before laying out his case in impenetrable legal language. 

What trial? thought Hux, barely listening. He’d had enough. “Shut up, you vicious little insect. I know you’re only doing this for the money. You twist the law round to suit your masters. You’re so shamelessly corrupt, all of you. Is it any wonder we’re trying to establish a new order out here?” Hux stood up and leaned across the table, moving suddenly in the way he’d seen Ren do. It was effective: the lawyer stiffened and tried to mask his fear as Hux leaned into his space.

“When we’re done, your kind won’t be left to flourish in the dungheaps of the rich.”

The man allowed himself to lean back. “I don’t have to put up with you almost spitting in my face,” he said coldly, and stood up. “Like the savage you are. Under your uniform.”

_ “Almost _ spitting?” said Hux. “Here. Something you can take back to the Do sen-Hutts.” 

He spat in the lawyer’s face.

“You’re making dangerous enemies, General,” said the lawyer. He wiped his face on his voluminous sleeves before tearing off them off and dropping them on the floor. He was smirking as he left. Hux ground his teeth.  
  


  *      *        *



 

“I dreamed a bigger sky, Father,” said Chaali. He flung out his hands. “So, so big! Only a million trillion times bigger. We had a ship like the Renovator. We went out in it, you and me!”

“What did we find?” asked Hux, smiling. But he was worried. Chaali was flushed and feverish again, and as he told Hux about their wonderful adventures together, his story began to ramble and lose coherency until he was stuttering.

“Oh! I’m so tired. I can’t tell you. I’ll tell you tomorrow.” Just as quickly, he turned pale. “I’m very cold. Why is it so cold? Owwww…..”

“Does it hurt?” asked Hux.

“Everywhere,” said Chaali, and just like that his eyes fluttered shut and he slipped under. Hux wondered how long it would be this time, hours or days or weeks.

He needed help, and there was nobody on the Finalizer that could help him.

*     *     *

Dr Hrabag concluded his examination. The fourth he’d done this cycle. Only this morning Chaali had taken a minirepulsor, stuck a mask on it made of crumpled-up homework flimsies, draped it in fabric swiped from Phasma, and sent it careening over the C-deck mess hall. He’d had run after it, whooping and laughing at the stormtroopers, who played along, exaggerating their mock-terror at the apparition. 

Now Chaali remained unconscious as Dr Hrabag ran yet another scanning device over him. Hux didn’t know what the scanners did, but he was beginning to trust this new senior medtech.  A short man with stooped shoulders and wiry greying hair, he spoke softly but confidently. He’d come highly recommended by Central Command.

The doctor pushed back his rolling seat, unhooking the monitor readers from Chaali’s temples and his own. Hux wondered what he’d seen inside Chaali’s head. Some symphony of flashing brainwaves, perhaps.

“I have to be straight with you, General,” he said, once his equipment was packed away. “I can’t see anything more we can do for him here. But…..” the medtech hesitated, sizing up Hux’s expression.  “I have a few favours I can call in. I know a neurotech on Ketaris.”

“Ketaris?” said Hux. “That’s a long way off….”

“Yes, but we’re in luck. My old mentor, Dr Hessfang, is in our region. He’s been doing some private research, and is headed back to Ketaris. Nowadays he mainly does teaching and research, but he’s still one of the most respected medtechs in this field”

“What is his field, exactly?” asked Hux. “What is wrong with Chaali?”

Dr Hrabag scratched his nose thoughtfully. “A lot of medical professionals don’t like to talk about psychic injuries. They don’t believe they exist. But it’s a big Galaxy, and neurotechs who’ve travelled and studied among many, many sentient races, like Dr Hessfang has, are a lot more open-minded. As am I.” Dr Hrabag looked hard at Hux, as though challenging him to mock him.

“No….no, I see. I mean, I’ve seen some things that science can’t explain. The Knights of Ren, for instance, who work for the Supreme Leader with us…they seem to have powers that I haven’t been able to explain, ah, rationally,” said Hux. He hadn’t told Dr Hrabag anything about Chaali meeting Snoke, of course. Who knew how far that story might travel, if it got out? 

“So. I was planning to take leave and meet Dr Hessfang on Ketaris. If you like, I can take Chaali with me.”

Hux thought it over. Something felt wrong about allowing Chaali to be taken away. Hux was not at liberty to go with him. Not now, when the tempo of construction was picking up on Starkiller Base. This was Hux’s project, and his chance to prove himself more than merely a First Order general. If Starkiller succeeded according to plan, Hux would be one of the most powerful military figures in the Galaxy.

“Let me think about it,” Hux said. 

Later that day Hux met with Ren. That was unusual: these days, Ren was away most of the time on missions for Snoke. Now though, Ren was standing at a viewport, staring into space. Hux thought that lately he was back to his old habits, wearing his helmet and brooding darkly in corners.

“I hate space,” Ren said, by way of greeting.

“Is that why you’re away so much?”  asked Hux. “What has the Supreme Leader got you doing?”

“Looking for things. With the Knights. The Force can be imbued in certain artefacts, you know. Relics.”

“Uh-huh,” said Hux, who couldn’t be less interested. “Speaking of the Force, our new senior medtech thinks Chaali’s suffering from some psychic injury. Can’t you go in his head and look?”

“Well of course it’s a psychic injury.”

Hux took a deep breath while he squashed his desire to rip Ren’s mask off and choke him. “And you didn’t tell me? Ren! This is my son.  _ Can  _ you or  _ can’t  _ you go into his mind and find out what’s wrong?”

“I can’t,” said Ren.

“Why not? You’ve always sensed when he’s in danger. He must have some kind of Force link with you!”

“He doesn’t have Force anything. He’s just a very loud thinker.”

“Well, that should make it easy to find out what’s wrong. You get inside people’s heads when you interrogate them.”

“No.”

Hux planted himself in front of him, forcing Ren to look at him. “I am ordering you to do the same for Chaali.”

“I — no, I won’t.” Ren was actually wringing his hands, Hux noticed. 

“Why? You don’t want to? Remember it’s _ Snoke _ that wants the First Order to have a crown prince. He won’t want one that’s in a coma half the time.”

“It’s not that simple!” Ren started clenching his fists and swaying from foot to foot like an overwrought reptile. Hux stared him down, mask or no mask, until he blurted out, “Look, what happened with Chaali and the Supreme Leader….Chaali’s mind is, it’s like a bomb going off in there! So much noise and light that it just undoes you if you try to touch it. If Chaali thinks about spaceships, he thinks a million thoughts about every spaceship he’s ever known. Imagine everything he knows, like a huge burning trashheap of trivia, all being screamed at you all at once.”

“You think Chaali knocked Snoke out by thinking too loudly at him?” asked Hux acidly.

“Maybe. But in any case, that’s a matter between the Supreme Leader and Chaali. It’s not my  _ place _ to look into what happened there!”

“So you knew all this time, and didn’t say anything to me?” Hux took a step towards Ren, who stepped away. “You knew Chaali’s got some psychic Force injury, something only you understand, and you’ve said nothing?”

“I kept your secrets from Snoke! I protected Chaali from him! He still doesn’t know they met that day!”

“And you’re keeping your secrets from me, too. I see that now. Get out of my sight,” said Hux flatly, beyond anger now.

Ren went still. Then he gave a sort of shiver, impossible to interpret under his opaque costume, before turning abruptly and striding away.

Hux made his decision, and went to see Dr Hrabag.

“Take Chaali to whoever can cure him. I’ll have one of the corvettes made available for your travel.”

Dr Hrabag hesitated. “Ah….I would prefer to take Chaali on a medical transport shuttle. It’s the best way to guarantee his wellbeing in transit. Once we meet up with Dr Hessfang, we can transfer to his ship. He generally travels in his own ship, which is not only very fast, but has one of the best-equipped medbays in space.”

“I need hardly remind you what a target my son would be to our enemies.”

‘Medical transports are usually no kind of target.”

“We’ll take a corvette as an escort then, and I will accompany you and Chaali as far as the rendezvous with Dr Hessfang. I want to meet this doctor myself.” Starkiller would have to fend for itself for a few weeks, Hux thought.

“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves,” said Dr Hrabag. “I have to make contact with him and arrange this.” He gave Hux a confident smile. “I don’t foresee any problems, though. He owes me a few favours.”

“Let’s hope he agrees,” Hux said. 

“He should. He’s built his reputation on his studies of the Unknown Region, but even he admits he he’s relied on my help. I’ve travelled extensively too, and some of his best research developed out of tip-offs I gave him.”

Hux nodded. He had read the man’s files, of course. Dr Hrabag was certainly well-travelled.

Dr Hessfang, when he looked him up, was a Chiss. The famously neutral Chiss, Hux thought.

  *    *       *



Of course he should have been more suspicious. No doctor, no matter how rich and well-connected, would have a private yacht as racy as the one that met them orbiting above Ketaris. 

“So this is the boy. An interesting case, I hear,” said Dr Hessfang, barely glancing at Hux. His red eyes drank in the sight of Chaali in a way that made Hux uneasy. Hux thought he recognised the same scientific hunger he had last seen saw at the Harax Biological Research Station.

“I’ll take the airgurney,” said a gravelly voice next to Hux. He jumped. A Duro had materialised next to him. It bared its teeth in a grin he did not find reassuring. Its medtech coat fit poorly over its muscular body.

“Ah, this is my assistant…” began Dr Hessfang.

Suddenly Hux’s personal commlink relayed proximity alerts from his own ship and his escort ship. 

“Oh dear, is that the time already?” drawled Dr Hessfang, looking annoyed. The Duro grinned lazily at them all, showing too many teeth.

“What the…?” said Hux. Louder than the alarm was his instinct for danger, which was screaming at him to run. Everything about Hessfang was wrong. Hux scooped Chaali off the airgurney and made to run towards the airlock leading back to his ship. Instead he found himself staring at the muzzle of a blaster, pointed at him by another Duro that seemed to have materialised out of nowhere.

“We should take him too,” said the second Duro, gesturing at Hux. “He’s bound to be worth something to somebody.”

“That wasn’t part of the deal, Rajniss,” said Dr Hessfang. “We’re remaining strictly within the law.”

“What law?” shouted Hux, holding Chaali tight against his chest. Chaali’s head lolled helplessly. 

“New Republic law, of course,” said another voice from behind Hux. One he recognised. He turned around. The Do sen-Hutt’s lawyer was standing by Dr Hessfang, a tight little smile on his face. “Now, the boy. Hand him over.”

There was a whump of air made solid rolling back through the airlock from Hux’s medical transport ship. He guessed it was under fire from whatever new ship had triggered the proximity alert.

“Let’s wrap this up,” said Dr Hrabag, who had not spoken yet. He jerked his thumb in the direction of whatever was attacking Hux’s ships. “With friends like those, who needs enemies?” He stepped up to Hux and clapped him on the neck. Hux felt the sting of a medneedle. Immediately his strength started to drain out of him like warm water trickling down a drain.

WIth brutal efficiency, one of the Duros grabbed Hux by the head and pressed the muzzle of the blaster to his temple while the other yanked his arms away from Chaali. Hux fought to keep hold of him, but his struggles became increasingly feeble. A woman’s voice came from the cockpit; a voice he recognised from somewhere.

“You got him? Bring him here. I want to see him!”

The last thing he saw before he passed out was the two doctors putting Chaali back on the airgurney and wheeling him away.

When he came to, he was on the First Order escort corvette’s medbay. He could not have been out for long. He could still hear the sounds of a space battle. He focused his eyes with difficulty. A medtech was waving something under his nose.

“Sir! how are you feeling?”

That was best left unanswered. “I’m awake!” he snapped, forcing himself to sit up. “What’s happening? Who is attacking us?”

“A big New Republic cruiser showed up as soon as you boarded Dr Hessfang’s ship….”

Hux swore. The whole thing had been a set-up. 

“Where is it? Dr Hessfang’s yacht?”

The medtech quailed. “Gone, I’m afraid. They threw you in a rescue pod and took off. We’d never catch them, I’m sorry.”

Hux fell back on his pillow. A blackness crawled up from the top of his spine and threatened to fill his whole head, and it had nothing to do with whatever drug Dr Hrabag had given him. He pounded his fist on the side of the bed, and each strike ignited a blaze of pain in his head. Still he couldn’t make it hurt enough. His son was gone.

  *      *        *



The New Republic cruiser didn’t engage with Hux’s ships for long. It was probably only there to make sure Dr Hessfang’s yacht made a clean getaway. If it even really was Dr Hessfang. Dr Hrabag, it turned out, wasn’t really Dr Hrabag. On their way back to the Finalizer, Hux got a report that the real Dr Hrabag’s body had been found dumped in an airless crater outside a transfer station.

A lot of wealth and political clout had gone into planting the man who had substituted Dr Hrabag on the Finalizer, thought Hux. One day he would destroy the people who’d done this, he thought.  
  


*       *         *

“You ridiculous little man. Did you seriously think we would let Julilla’s son grow up into some sword-beating soldier? A beautiful boy like him? What future would he have with _ you, _ the head of some trumped-up space army lurking in the Unknown Regions? You must all really think you’re something, with your big Star Destroyers and your thousands of soldier slaves. That’s your problem, you know? You’ve been away from the centre of civilisation for too long.”

“Just tell me where he is, Messalina,” said Hux. His voice was steady, but his hands reached into her holographic image and jabbed viciously at her eyes. Ripped her cheeks apart. Tore her hair out. The hologram shimmered unchanged under his violence. It was only light. How he wished he could confront the real Messalina. 

She seemed unaware he’d even spoken, or didn’t she care. “You go on building your military anthills in the back of beyond, if you like, while the rest of us fly into the future. What have you got to offer Chaali? The chance to be king of the hill? The pathetic, grey, military anthill you call home? You can be leader of all you like, but to us it’s still a pathetic little patch of nothingness somewhere in space that nobody cares about.

“And that weird cult leader you follow. You’ve lost all sense of decency and common sense, with him. He’s got you believing in some great destiny. Do you actually believe he has all these magic powers people claim? We can’t have Chaali growing up with a pack of gullible warmongering fools.”

Hux’s vision reddened and narrowed until it seemed he could see only one thing, Messalina’s face with its mocking smile, its utter carelessness, her cruelty. No wonder Julilla treated everyone as though they were completely expendable: this was what she had grown up with. 

His eyes burned from staring at the screen so hard, unblinking, trying to force his hatred through the imager and across the lightyears. If only he could kill her with the force of his hatred. If only he could kill all of them, the smug, satisfied, vile creatures. He’d love to see them burn.

Messalina stared back. It was the only time he’d ever seen her look wholly focused. Usually she seemed scattered, fiddling with her hair or covertly checking her reflection in her imager, as though Hux or Chaali were only distractions to her self-worship. Now her pale blue eyes were drinking in every detail of his pain. Maybe she was even recording it for future enjoyment.

Hux cut the connection with such force that the switch snapped off. He swept it onto the floor, threw the console after it, and ground them both under his heel, slowly and with great deliberation.

  *      *        *



A few weeks after his return to the Finalizer, Hux received a message that made him laugh bitterly. It was from Dr Hrabag. Well, of course the man would know how to contact him, he thought.

Hux keyed on the connection and a small image of Hrabag appeared on his holopad.

“What do you want, spy?”

“What everybody wants. To get paid,” said Hrabag.

“Didn’t Messalina pay you? What a surprise. Now you know how they got so rich.”

“We couldn’t deliver. Halfway to the Hosnian system Chaali woke up, and when he did, his mother kicked us off the ship and took off with Chaali and the ship.”

“Julilla was piloting the ship?” Hux asked. That bitch. He remembered now, the voice from the cockpit.

“It was her ship.”

“Why would I pay you for kidnapping my son?”

“You called me a spy, and I am. You have to admit I’m good at blending in, and I have the contacts you need. I will hunt for your son and bring him back to you.”

“How do I know any of this is true? Is Chaali even alive?”

“There was no lie about Dr Hessfang’s credentials. He cured Chaali with an enzymatic solution he created. He said he’d seen cases like this before. Look, I’ll show you a holovid of the touching reunion. I was making it for Messalina — I like to deliver extra service, that’s how good I am — but seeing how things turned out….” 

The image of Dr Hrabag - or whoever he really was - flicked out and was replaced by a grainy view of the inside of Hessfang’s ship. Or Julilla’s ship, really. And here came Julilla, swinging herself out of the cockpit and into the medbay, her face alight with hope. Hux’s heart wrung at the sight. She was still beautiful. How he hated her.

“Mummy!” shouted Chaali, sitting up. “I didn’t know you were back!  Did you reach M919-4? Tell me about the farjumper ship!”

“My little chick, it blew itself to bits!” she smiled, leaning down to pick him up. “I’m so glad to see you awake. Now are you ready for some new adventures? Let me show you this ship. This is our ship. It’s a prototype from Sienar Fleet Systems.”

“A prototype?” said Chaali. “What’s it called?”

“It doesn’t even have a name yet.” She leaned her head on to Chaali’s and let him snuggle against her neck. “I met Danith Sienar, though. He runs Sienar Fleet Systems now. Maybe he’ll name the ship after me when I’ve finished testing it.” She smiled a slow, secretive smile, while Chaali grinned with delight.

“Technically, it belongs to Lord Do sen-Hutt,” began the lawyer, who was still with them.

“Ah yes. About that. Change of plan,” said Julilla airily. “I’ve decided I don’t want to go and live on the family estate with mummy dear. Chaali would die of boredom there. Thanks so much for your help, though!” she finished brightly. Suddenly there was a stunblaster in her hand. The screen blanked out, then Hrabag reappeared. 

“She took us completely by surprise, even the Duros. We woke up in a clutch of escape pods at a jump point.”

“You too, huh? I’ll pay you to deliver the boy, alive and unharmed.”

*        *           *

Work is the great antidote, of course. In the months that followed, stretching into years, it seemed that Hux never slept. He was everywhere, watching the crews emplace the big beams that bound Starkiller’s open spaces into a lattice, ordering the lowering of the great machines into their seating with a voice that grew ever tighter, harnessed to a terrible rage. The fires of the great tunneling blasters were reflected in his eyes, and his officers thought he seemed more than a little mad.

He dreamed black dreams of the weapon. Oh, what a surprise it would be to them, complacent in their inner worlds, so convinced that the future was theirs.

Hux’s leadership of the Starkiller project was very public, of course, or at least within the First Order. Less public was the careful game of espionage he controlled. Hrabag, or whoever he was, became only one of Hux’s operatives.  The First Order had many, many eyes, and prompted by Snoke’s uncanny prescience, they watched many, many things, spreading through the Galaxy like shadowy finger-puppets. 

One thing they hunted that not even Snoke was aware of. A renegade pilot and her son. 

And she knew it. She had to. Only that could explain her elusiveness. Julilla and Chaali stayed well away from the core worlds, far from the Unknown Regions, and far from human space. They had become freebooters with a fast ship and ever-changing identities. 

As Hux’s life moved from the Finalizer to Starkiller Base, he saw less and less of Chaali’s imaginary presence. Somehow the new place could not accept even the ghost of that bright ball of chaos, and Hux no longer heard Chaali’s laugh or imagined him running ahead through the corridors. Chaali would have marvelled at the great engines, would have shrieked with excitement at their size and power. He would have memorised every fact, every detail of their workings. And yet… now when Hux thought of him, he saw him running easily through sun and shadow on bare feet, a long stick in one hand, dancing through the wilderness and playing at being a Knight of Ren. 

Starkiller had none of that. Sterile of ghosts. Maybe it was easier that way.

Ren caught him staring out at the darkening snow forest one day.

“You’re gloomy,” said Ren, and stood, impassive and masked, waiting for Hux to answer. But Hux didn’t answer. Ren didn’t need to know that he’d been wondering what Chaali would do with all that snow. The things he would build! Carving his own freedom out of nothing but imagination and snow.

“Starkiller’s going to be finished on time. Isn’t that enough?” Ren prompted, unmoving. The silence stretched.

“Sometimes I just imagine Chaali still being here,” said Hux after a while, when he thought he could control his voice.

“He’d hate it. Having to wear snow gear and shoes. You’d have to knock him out with a tranquilliser to dress him for the outdoors. He’s better off elsewhere.”

“That’s not for you to say!” Hux hissed.

“Then you shouldn’t have sent him off!” said Ren.

“Well maybe if your super Force powers were any use, you could have _ healed _ him so we didn’t need to send him anywhere!” spat Hux. It was unfair and he knew it. But there was nobody else to punish for this, nobody on Starkiller, though he wanted every day to break bones with his bare hands, to see blood splatter the snow of this awful white hell.

Ren made an untranslatable noise inside his helmet and stormed off, cloak tails flying behind him. Hux stood by the window, shaking with rage.

 

*         *       *

One night Hux was surprised by a chime on his bedside comms unit. It had been a week of relentless work. Starkiller Base was nearly ready. It’d been a real, living entity for months now, truly the gathering place of the First Order, as he had promised them. The shake-down drills confirmed its readiness. Soon, soon….

He almost ignored the call. He’d had hardly any sleep in the past week. Couldn’t he, just for once, let this go, whatever it was, until tomorrow? But he leaned over, stretched out his hand and opened the channel anyway.

He felt his heart lurch so that he almost lost his balance. There was no harried officer calling him from some control room, some ship, some grey corridor. This was his son, tanned golden, his hair a long flag of sunlight flaring around his face. 

Chaali was outside somewhere, squinting a little to look into the imager. Hux could hear and see the ocean behind him, and spiral-looped trunks of some kind of vegetation framing his view of the water. Everything was striped with bright sun and shade, and some creature was whooping and cackling in the background.

“Father?” Chaali looked triumphant. “Oh good, it’s you! I wasn’t sure this would work!” He glanced over his shoulder. “Mum doesn’t know….”

Hux shook himself out of his paralysis. So many thoughts in his head, he didn’t know where to start. He’d had speeches prepared for this moment, if it should ever happen. If he should ever find Chaali. But now Chaali had found him! Or found the code to his holoscreen, which amounted to the same thing.

“Chaali! It’s good to see you. So good…”  That sounded weak, and Hux knew it. “Are you well?” But of course he was. The boy glowed with health and strength. “Are you….where are you?”

“I can’t tell you that.” 

“Well….it looks like you’re on a beach. You like beaches, don’t you?” This wasn’t going anything like Hux had imagined.

“Yes. I love this place!”

“What are you doing there?”

“Fishing. Mum repairs ships…she lets me help!” He took a little gasping breath as though afraid he’d said too much. “I can’t tell you more.”

“Are you happy?” Hux asked, into the little silence that developed. “Are you well?”

“Yes. I’m fiiiiiiiiiiine!” From the tone of voice, Hux could tell Chaali was tired of talking about his health. “We move a lot though. I hope we can stay here.”

“Do you miss the Finalizer at all?” Hux couldn’t bear to ask what he really wanted to know. 

“Oh! Yes! All the ships. And Phasma’s sewing room, where she let me play with all those colours! And I miss Kylo. He was so weird! I think he had magic. I wish he’d taught me how to fight….”

“Do you need to fight? Where you are, I mean?” Hux felt his heart clench at the thought that Julilla might not be keeping him safe.

“Oh! No!” said Chaali airily. “People are so nice. Anyway, do you want to see the blaster I built? That’s why I called you. I wanted to show you!” Chaali held up something. It had the Chaali hallmarks: Fanciful, ornate, possibly not functional. Wires and silver balls stuck out of it bizarrely at all angles. The handgrip was decorated with beads.

Well. Chaali said he missed Phasma, he said he missed Kylo, but who did he call to show off his pride and joy? Hux smiled.

“Does it work?”

“Sure it works!” Chaali grinned excitedly and aimed the imager away from him so Hux could see further along the beach. Hux watched Chaali’s back, muscles sliding smoothly under his shoulders as he lifted the blaster and sighted along it. How he’d grown! 

“See that tree? See the ball of blue fluff - those are the leaves, by the way. They photosynthesise on a different frequency to most plants…” Hux could see Chaali resisting the urge to start one of his monologues. He was growing up, thought Hux. “Anyway, here goes. Are you watching?”

“I’m watching,” said Hux. Chaali pulled the trigger and the blue leaf-ball erupted in flames. 

“That’s at least 250 metres,” said Chaali.

“Looks like more,” said Hux. A glow of pride warmed him. “Good aim too.”

There was a yell of outrage and Hux saw a couple of figures run into view from beyond the burning tree. Some three-legged alien and…..a human. Probably a woman. Possibly Julilla.

“Oops, gotta go. I’m not supposed to fire…”

Hux felt panic. “Chaali, Chaali, wait. Wait!” 

Chaali’s finger paused on the Off button. 

“Stay away from the Core worlds. Stay away from the Hosnian system. If you go there, you’ll be in danger,” said Hux hastily.

Chaali leaned in and whispered, because the running figures were getting closer.

“We’re  _ never  _ going _ there!  _ Julilla’s mum might catch us, and we HATE her!”

“Good boy!” said Hux, bubbles of relief rising in his chest. His face hurt from the unfamiliar feeling of muscles unused to smiling. 

Chaali gave him a conspiratorial smile, and flicked the switch. Hux sat in the dark, staring into the empty screen as though its light and warmth was still bathing him. Later when he went to the window, he tried to imagine his son running through the snowy woods outside. He’d love snow. But it was impossible now to imagine him either there or in the long grey halls of the Finalizer.

  *    *      *



The icy clean air of Starkiller Base filled his lungs as he readied himself to speak. A thousand eyes were fixed on him, and it felt as though a thrilling power beamed from him to them, and back again, until his skin tingled with it.

“Today is the end of the Republic. The end of a regime that acquiesces to disorder. At this very moment in a system far from here, the New Republic lies to the Galaxy while secretly supporting the treachery of the rogues of the Resistance. This fierce machine which you have built, upon which we stand will bring an end to the Senate, to their cherished fleet. All remaining systems will bow to the First Order and will remember this as the last day of the Republic!”

The sea of white armour before him roared its approval. Who wouldn’t want this power?

Billions would die. War was a shame. 

Better that the power should be in his hands than theirs, though. The power to strike down all his enemies, the enemies of the just state they would build from this day forwards. They would start from a clean slate. Justice for all.

The vortex of light in Starkiller’s heart rose into the sky and punched its way into hyperspace. It would reach the Hosnian system minutes later. Hux could see the screens relaying the readouts from the spysats orbiting Hosnia Prime. All the telltales green. All the numbers tracking perfectly.

Special delivery, from us to you, he thought.  _ I am become the lightning of vengeance. _

He imagined them running out on to the balcony of their mansion. Messalina’s  jewelled fingers fluttering over her mouth as she tried to understand what it meant, the lights in the sky, the flames raining down. Her husband, the fat downtrodden slimeball, lumbering after her to put his hand on her shoulder. All the fawning politicians who dined at their table.  _ What is it dear, what could it be? _

He hoped it hurt.

He hoped it hurt.

He hoped it hurt.

  
  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, it started as a comedy. Sometimes these things happen.
> 
> Generally things don't turn out the way I expected.
> 
> This is the end, sorry folks. A happy ending for Chaali, not so much for Hux. The "to be continued" note that keeps popping up is not meant to be there but I can't delete it.

**Author's Note:**

> To be continued....


End file.
